Fire

I remember, when the lights were switched offBefore bed, the shadows decoratingA cold and darkening room cast by a littleGlowing furnace burning coal.I could throw my fags into the fire, or spit andWatch the phlegm dance and sizzle in the flames.Men and women nervous about the yearsRemember huddling round the hotOrange-red flames licking the jet-black fireback.You could stare into the fire, grab the iron poker,Stir the black coal and your own dark thoughts.

Hard not to wonder about the men and womenWho lived and died in a world where a fireCrackled and burned near the entrance of a cave.Outside the world was an immense tangleOf the living - rivers, trees, animals and birds -All charged with an energy, a vital spirit.But when the sun left only a vast dark,A voice behind the fire would tell a storyOf the ones who had gone into an even moreImpenetrable darkness – never to return.And the words would comfort the raptShivering children who were the tribe.

Men have always scrambled in or on the earthTo feed the fire to burn until another dawn.In time though, they learned to do far moreThan hold back the dark; they burned so wellThat now they threaten to burn the earthItself and leave just a glowing cinder.And still stories are told for the tribe to keepThem safe from the dark – which has never gone away.