After our home burned down in the Tea Fire,
I started picking up trash on the streets.
I don’t know why. Maybe I was trying to get back
the things we’d lost—not that Clif Bar wrappers,
wadded Kleenex, and broken bottles of Heineken
had been among our prized possessions.
At any rate, let’s just say that life became
one long hunt for slightly used Easter eggs.
I’d be out for a run, cruising along, and soon
I’d be stopping at every turn, stooping to glean
another bent nail or rusty hairclip or smashed
Dixie cup from the ground. A mere half mile
would go by, and my hands would be full,
and then I would begin my search for the first
available trash can, hoping the neighbors wouldn’t mind.

Once, loping down the shady turns
of Sycamore Canyon, I located so many shattered
auto parts that I had to heap them in a box
I found at the side of the road. And soon I was just
walking, supporting the box with both arms.
I spied a lone trash can at the upper end of a driveway
but, not wanting to trespass, set the box down by the curb.
Then I started running again—but almost at once
I heard shouts behind me. A group of neighbors
who had been milling about the top of another driveway
at a yard sale, a whole posse of them were now on my tail,
sprinting like Olympic hopefuls. “Stop!” they cried.
So I stopped and waited. And then they arrived,
out of breath, with hands clenched at their sides.
One woman looked ready to slug me.
“What do you think you’re doing,” she screamed,
“dumping your garbage on our street!”
“I was just . . .” I started to say.
But my face burned, and my arms trembled.
“Oh, forget it,” said a man, and he pulled the woman
away from me and walked back to pick up the box
of broken auto parts himself. And that man
was my savior, lifting a burden from my heart.

You can listen to a conversation about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast.

Photo by Albert Stoynov on Unsplash