tenth year flame

I am gathering the coals of us, love.
Remember how we used to rub our minds together and burst
Into gentle suns? Our bellies, never a bonfire, too sensible
For such waste, but a mountain campfire banked by handpicked stones:

A first kiss on the cheek, your confident guitar, my tentative drum
(Such musical foreplay in our throats), our poems– yours earthen, mine boats,
March powwows too bright, passed flowers on careful desert hikes
Collecting concretions and moon clouds.

Too many moons I have idly tended our glowing reds,
Handed mine out to likely, lonely passersby,
Leaped our rocky circle, started rambling grasses afire.
You have watched, awaited my whetted burn and wet returns.

Creeping from connubial containment, I return, I return.
Crackling here quietly with you, warming our children’s hands
And faces, becoming the flame of the sacred mundane, the play
Of bodhisattvas and saints.

Why then do I resist and scatter? Was I meant to be a running
Forest fire consuming bodies and pretty chatter?
A lithe Zippo coquette flipping spark to lips and lips and lips?
Surely I was made for more than this, yet this.

I am looking for tinder and kindling, love,
But have used up what is near. I must walk long
Nights into howling woods of hungry cells,
Gather lies of discontent and selfishness.

Will these burn forever? Toss in aversion for good measure.
But the stench! Worse than piss fir. Still I search.
Plentiful the sage, the sweetgrass of my heart,
Throw it in and pray, throw it in: we are a prayer.

2007