PAD Day 19: An Infamous Fire

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "persona" poem, and (2)  "Write your own poem that tells a story in the style of a blues song or ballad [with an emphasis on tragedy]. One way into this prompt may be to use it to retell a family tragedy or story, or to retell a crime or tragic event that occurred in your hometown."

It took me a while, but I eventually settled on a big (and rather tragic) event I remember from almost 50 years ago: The huge fire at Garden State Racetrack, in what is now my hometown of Cherry Hill, in April of 1977. I remember leaving work from 40 miles south that afternoon and being able to see the huge billows of smoke from that far away. There were about 11,000 racing fans in the stands that day, and considering how big and fast-moving the blaze was, it was amazing that no more than three people died. (One victim was a fire chief who suffered a heart attack.) One of the most memorable photos of that blaze is a statue of a horse and jockey immersed in flames, so that is the ekphrastic element of my poem. I decided to write a ballad in traditional rhyming couplets, from the "persona" of the horse in the statue.

Ballad of the Racehorse Statue
 
We followed the wind, my good jockey and I,
Perched on the grandstand and touching the sky.
Caught in mid-gallop, we raced at full tilt,
The proudest top part of the racetrack they built.
Greeting the bettors who looked for a thrill,
Our home was the pride of all Cherry Hill.
 
Then one April day an electrical spark
Ignited wood grandstands in Garden State Park.
The flames quickly spread and burned every seat,
And thousands of fans made a panicked retreat.
Miraculously, only three of them died,
They watched the spectacular flames and some cried.
Smoke billowed for hundreds of feet in the air,
And could be seen from just about everywhere.
 
But my rider and I were trapped in the blaze,
You could see us still run through the smoke and haze.
Immersed in the flames that we couldn’t outrun,
In a race for our lives that couldn’t be won.
We both set the pace, in a five-furlong dash,
But in the end we were just part of the ash.
For the racetrack I grieve, for the victims I pray,
But I was the only horse who died that day.
 

[Photo by Bill Roswell, Suburban Newspaper Group.]