Love, A Fire

Imagine if you will, a fireplace in an old stone house,

the kind with a hearth wide enough to roast an ox,

or at the very least, a few plump chickens and an assortment of root vegetables.

 

And in this fireplace, a fire crackles and hums,

a pyre for the heart, licking and flaring with an appetite

that seems almost indecent in its fervency.

 

But this is no ordinary blaze, my friend,

this is the kind of fire that wants to change you,

the sort you read about in ancient myths, full of promise and alarm.

 

Imagine now, hurling yourself like a log—

all your possessions, your fears, your neatly folded reservations—

into these transformative flames.

 

Watch as the fire licks your edges,

consuming the daily newsprint of your life,

the private memos, the grocery lists, the endless to-do's.

 

With each crackle, your ego pops like a sap bubble,

your desires char into feather-light ash,

and ambition, that twisted, burning branch, disintegrates.

 

Until all that is left of you is what cannot be seared or scorched,

a diamond core of pure being glowing in the embers,

incandescent with the simple, naked truth of yourself.

 

And there, in the waning glow, as the fire settles into silence,

you understand at last the arsonist's joy—

the beauty of warmth, the necessity of light,

and, oh yes, the inevitable rise of smoke signals,

telling tales of transformation to an ink-black sky. ("Love, A Fire") by Courtney Weaver Jr.