October Fire

What do people see in you

O Dancing Flames

Leaping, licking

Flickering in the cool evening

Of this October day?

Like so many Octobers

That have gone before

Warming the hands

Stretched out toward you

Warming the face

Set toward you

Drying the eyes

That gaze upon you

What do those eyes see

In your constant change?

What so many others

In past ages have seen

Going back to Adam

And that first fire

The very first one?

His hopes

His dreams

His aspirations

Like your changing flares

Your tongues that appear now

And dissipate

Into the air

As if they had never been

Yet leaving the witness

Of their existence

In the heat now felt

Then quickly swallowed up

By the surrounding chill

Your light

Lost eventually

In the pervading darkness

And dying down

O October Fire

Into glowing embers

Remnants of your inferno

Ashes, traces of the things

That once were solid and had form

Living things

Whose death

Affords warmth to body

Light in darkness

Ability to prepare sustenance

So one can live

And hope

And dream

And aspire

All over again

Tomorrow

O Flickering Tongues

Like the first fire

West of Eden

In that strange and altered land

Where beasts stalked

But feared to come near

To thy blazing destruction

In this man found comfort

And life from the dead

O October Fire

We gather around you

And cherish the gift

Mesmerized

By your ability

To bring together

And unite

In love

Laughter

Friendship

Fellowship

And Brotherhood

O Dancing Flames

O Flickering Tongues

Men flee from you

Unless you are confined

And contained

And controlled

They delight in your ever-changing

Constancy

And in the constancy

Of your instability

They allegorize

And compare you

To things both good and bad

To passion

To love

To unruly words

To trauma

To zeal

To punishment

To God Himself

We sit

And gaze

And wonder

Lost in your ever-changing

Panorama

And dare to hope

To dream

To aspire

All over again

Tomorrow