Poem: Flame's Edge

Flame's Edge

In November, the days shorten
and dark comes early
as you pile the last bit of brush
on the pyre.

For over a year you have toiled,
clearing the landscape
of it's historic debris,
thirty years of wreckage,
fallen oaks, their roots rotten and exposed
for the lies of their strength;
twisted limbs wrested by winds
and tossed to the ground;
flotsam like litter,
so much

that at first there was no landscape to be seen,
only the destruction of decades,
and in this turmoil, you began,

without plans or any end in mind, but
simply because you could not bear
the brokeness that lay everywhere in your sight,
and so,
you started.

And now, months and months later,
it all stands here,
tall and reaching skyward,
the pyre,
flaming towards the moon,
your own version of hell burning
as you stand
at the edge of the flames
watching the ashes form, knowing
that in the morning,
planting can at last,
begin.

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The picture was taken at the same small group gathering I wrote about in my "Fire Art" entry a few days ago. I actually wrote the poem in a chinese restaurant, early in the evening before I went to the bonfires, using the idea of the fires to build a poem around. You can click on the picture to get a larger version.

Tom