The Fire Children

You gathered the kindling and
crumpled newspapers

Carefully stacked and snapped
over an ashen knee

Timbers and sticks in your
practiced pyre

Balanced logs, swept and
wiped sweat then, waited:

A moment passed, you lit
a match and submerged it

In an ancient headline, tinder dry,
later I watched you

Slip into an involuntary skip,
a flicker of exuberance

And a flame of life, who watched me,
the expanding iris ringed with orange glow

Signalling the beginning of
A roaring ritual we all know

You coaxed it with oxygen
blown through pursed lips

Head inclined, attentive, listening
for the birth, breath and hiss of combustion

The Sunday paper pinned with thumbs
curve bellowing in to the roar orange behind

And the hearth so hot it left you blind
with a smoke-smog blast, given to morning

And there it was, the assembled licking gift
renting bronze relections on the living room wall

You left, sipping tea
crunching gravel, fishing for keys -

The car would take you down the valley's dark incline
for work, lost time and responsibility

But not before the glow had grown
enough to clothe us in it's warm, insular memory