6830. OF A FIRE

OF A FIRE

All I hear are echoes -  and these flames crackling

away. The woods are burning down? Wasn't it

Norman Mailer who wrote, 'Of a Fire on the Moon'?

Yes, it was, about the moon-landing. It was quite a nice 

image; that 'fire' on the moon. The fact that there wasn't 

really one at all didn't mean anything  -  he made reference

to the lift-off of the module back to the command ship.

And then, the Grateful Dead, they hit their gong with

'Fire, Fire On the Mountain.' I always liked that too.

-

So, what is it about fire that brings me here? What

obscure idea must I jettison to tell you what I mean?

Poets aren't supposed to explain, just rather find that

crystalline magic which prospers the image to come right

at your face; to be recognized and be understood, sometimes

without making a smidgen of sense. If it has to be explained,

well, then, one may as well just write prose. Like a guidebook

or an instruction manual instead.

-

I think back now, over these last 10 months or so and realize

there's not a thing I miss : I don't miss the purpose or the ways 

or the people or the reasons or the meanings. I don't miss that 

coffee-shop at morning, or all those sweet girls talking at me,

those guys with their funny hats and lively ways, the black

squirrels who run the campus, the little cops on their one

man scooters scooting over the grass. The annoying people

on the bus or the train. Nothing really at all.

-

It's more like I just miss fire : the fire of ideas, and the fire of

lips and the fire of the hearts I may have seen and touched.

A fire, such as those fires, it stays with me, and goes now 

wherever I go. It doesn't have words; it just burns on.