bon-fire
Before it got too dark to see
we gathered
fallen leaves
and snap-dry sticks
and tepeed them there
in the pit.
My father crumpled up
yesterday’s newspaper,
my brother struck the match.
With our backs to the night,
we gathered
together, half of each
lit like the underside of a leaf.
We stayed
until the flames
licked the bones
down to coals,
and spoke our stories
over the ash.
let me love you
Oh, let me love you like the errant flame
that burns the field to ash before the wind,
a wand’ring knight with neither place nor name
except that which is given here to him.
And let me love you like the passing rain
that cools the fever in the furrowed gash.
A salve of justice choking out the pain,
a promise that the fire will someday pass.
But let me also love you like the sun
that drives its drowsy flocks to pastures new
and lifts the heads of those who live undone,
that they may enter in through gates of dew.
My love is still untamed, a trinity
of doubtful forces, yet He harvests me.
speak
When it’s wrong
do not withhold
the fuel that sets the blaze
to reveal
what it truly is
beneath the shine and glaze.
Do not hesitate, my friend.
Strike the spark and lay it deep
within the pile,
Let fury split the ash,
that what remains
is only purer for the trial.
What burns within you now
but a joining torch
of the Eternal Flame?
Let all other fires falter
but the Holy One, the Same.
solar flare
yes,
we carry fragments
of the sun
with us
into the void,
but
I am not God,
and that makes all the difference.