Around the Fire

We told strange stories around the fire,

As the smoke rose, touching stars, forming

A veil upon our eyes—

The words dancing

The moon burning

We grabbed smoldering embers in our bare hands—

Laughed while our fingers blackened,

Bones exposed,

Listening to the night explain its meaning.

We waited millions of years, as the sun came up and down

Innumerable times—

How the ants crawled all the same,

And the trees too, standing still,

still.

But the pain remains, as endless tears

Could not dampen the fire—

Nor could the most wistful tales cure our aches;

So we sit—telling, singing—crying—

Whisper to me these secrets now,

Those that beg to know,

The ones that solace comes to late at night,

When everyone’s asleep—in a half-dream,

And the creatures walk out and hiss and whistle,

Speaking in tongues and bizarre languages:

And I understand—everything…

And that is when my legs fail me

In my ailment, age, and quiet tenderness

So we hold hands, dear, darling, mother, father, brother, sister,

In a ring that we wear

With honor and with pity—

Rubbing our burnt hands together,

Forever, and ever.

How strange everything has become…

The soil toiled and dark with envy and wear,

Toughened by our wrinkled feet, fleeting roots—

I think we’d float now, and go.

Wander up the sky, the heavenly ladders,

Arms spread, accepting, our lives yielded.

But I fall, as do we all.

And we wait, as does our foul fate.

And we sing around this fire to the Earth’s lyre,

Until we tire.