Beholding Fire
O my Spirit! Why do you so pine
for the embrace
of lovers, and follow their happy
walk with greedy
eye? It seems almost as if water
for parched lips,
this love that is ubiquitous, but
which is never here.
Be careful what prayer you speak
in silence of heart,
for what seems wonderful may yet
be ice over lake,
and when one steps forth with
unsure step, in unhappy
instant one falls through, and is
dragged beneath the sheet.
Or, consider it yet a flame! Yea,
for flame was blessed
by God to multiply undiminished,
like all that lives,
and when it flickers it is a spark
of star alive before
your very eyes. But spill it from
its waxen cradle.
Then, it shall draw power from
everything touching it,
paper and wood, house of stone and
glass of windows:
it will not stop, unquenched in
its passion, until it
consumes everything, and leaves
the home an ashen heap.
Yet what will you do? Always live
in the winter, when
the warm breath of spring flies
about? Though the fire
is a force of its own rule, for
this the freezing man should
banish it from life, and with it
dispatch perhaps the soul?
No. For fire only feeds on what if
given it, and smolders
when there is no charity. It destroys
only when no watch
stands over it, punishing neglect
with great consequence.
Love, thus, is full-time duty and
employ, nothing less.
Are you, Spirit, yet so selfish
and imperfect, ready to mix
with another person? To keep vigil
over breath of lover,
to prepare for vigil over son and
daughter? Ask this before
you beg the cross they bear, with
such agony and ecstasy.
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