Watering the Fire

In Memory of Kate Dietz

A friend of mine died recently. A sister, daughter, mother, beloved of many in my community.

I say my community like there’s just one, but truth is I’m part of many communities. We all are. And we are all also one community. The air we breathe is all the same, and all the water on Earth is already here. There’s no more coming, least that we know of, and I think it’s best to operate like we’ve been blessed by this mystery, instead of searching for whatever we think might save us.

It’s ok to leave room for mystery. It’s essential, actually. But it’s wise to acknowledge our limits. Kate did that. She invited people into her potential death within a year very openly, and she invited people into the end of her story, announcing the end was near and inviting people to come for a visit.

What if she hadn’t acknowledged the limits of her body and what was coming?

I can’t say I know everything that could have happened, but one thing I can say for sure, is we would have lost the opportunity for our hearts to break in real time, letting our love flow toward her to carry her down one of the rivers she loved.

I don’t know which river that is, only she does.

But I know where the river ends. Hold a shell to your ear. Can you hear it?

She was only 42.

Single mother by choice of two five year old twin girls.

I’m sharing a Gofundme link for those who would like to financially contribute to supporting Kate’s daughters, and this poem I wrote inspired by another community where I heard the phrase “watering the fire” spoken and knew immediately they wanted to be a poem about Kate.

I wish she hadn’t gone, but what a way to go. In a strange way, I feel blessed by my own tears.

Here’s the link:

Support Kate Dietz's daughters

Watering the Fire

In a red dress, kicking up the dust in red heels,
way sexier than Dorothy, but kind of like her, too, 
you were always the first one on the dance floor.

Maybe that’s not true, but it’s how
I remember you. 

It was easy to imagine you being lifted by a tornado 
and deposited in Oz, where you’d get to work
helping the scarecrow realize 
he wasn’t so empty-headed after all, 
the lion find his courage,
and of course, return the Tin Man
to his beating heart. 

Just think of all the love he must have felt 
when the Wicked Witch of the West’s curse broke,
the hot blood conducted lightning-quick
to his surface. To touch him
would have burned. 

                                That’s the kind of love
we’re talking about. Hiding, not an option.
Burn it all down. 

                 There’s no place like home.

Once we rode a train, two buses, and a van
to a camp in the Maine woods 
where you asked me
to sing really loud into your ear
because you had to take your hearing aids out
so they wouldn’t melt 
when we ducked 
and crawled into the sweat lodge.

I’d never realized till that moment,
there were things you couldn’t hear
that I could. You were so willing 
to go into the dark without a song.

Steam hissed when water met rocks heated red
by the prayer of fire returning innocence
before going dark in a pile of ashes.
I sang so loud veins in my throat burst.

I think I was way more scared than you.
You would probably laugh and say 
I’m making this way too complicated,
write something clear and simple like fingers
plucking notes on a sitar, but we both know
how much practice that takes,
how hands must bleed for those notes
to be clear enough to reach the moon.

You loved rivers
the way a baby loves its mother,
not wondering where the water comes from.



—in memory of Kate Dietz

Dancing in my red dress in all the water. Photo by Nicolette Morgan

Kō aloha lā ea

Concentrate on love by way of the light