Fire Engine Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Fire-engine
Now that it is autumn going towards winter
I often think about morbid things to avert this
I think of what I liked as a child.
The sound of the fire engine rushing through
the town; ran after it and felt heroic.
Often the fire was far away when I got there
it was too late; the fire had been small
rubbish burning in junkyard sot on a wall.
Firemen, rolling up their hoses, they
were called that, now they are firefighters
to make it more inclusive, mind you, I have
never seen a female among them, I knew
there were women at the fire-house.
I went there to have mother's kitchen knives
sharped; they deftly wrote on typewriters.
I was going to be a fireman, they looked so
tall and tough, spitting manly.
Alas, a few years down the line, they grew smaller.