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ON TENDING THE GREAT ANCESTRAL FIRES
Here lies the residue
Of an old fire
Long gone
Dry—Ashes
Left to the whelms
Of raindrops to dampen
Into a useless mush—
Or for the wind to blow
Aimlessly to nowhere;
Wet and immobile
Or blowing dry in the wind,
Useless are cold ashes.
Here, scattered among the warm ashes,
Lay hot remnants of a once great fire
Gone untended—abandoned as.
Often, tenders of great fires are released
From their duties by the thirst of death;
Others are just scared away.
Be whichever it may, great fires
Cocoon themselves in charcoal hued embers.
Charcoal hued embers—steamers of raindrops
And lovers of rebirthing winds of ignition.
Come chilled children;
Movements are like unsettled ashes
Of social interchange; revolution,
Like volcanic embers of transformation.
Come cocooned children;
Let us gather and stoke volcanic embers
That we may metamorphose in the presence
Of the Great Fire spirit of our ancestors—
Least we devolve into the staled mush of ashes.
