Poetry Archives

There, where the pool of mortal light begins
to gather, where the rivulet breaks free
to make a fire, a flame blows in the wind.

This is no easy rising—odds and ends
of nothingness to stir, darkness to seize
there where the pool of mortal light begins.

Many have doubted, many refused to bend
to such simplicity, down on their knees
to make a fire.  A flame blows in the wind

and casts its shadow where it will.  To fend
away the cold—time’s unremitting freeze—
there where the pool of mortal light begins

a single spark will do, if it but lend
the necessary fury to the fallen trees
to make a fire: a flame blows in the wind.

Nothing can summon that which has no end
and no beginning.  Yet flesh can blend,
there where the pool of mortal light begins,
to make a fire.  A flame blows in the wind.