the fire-place

The present,
ever burning up,
our eyes beguiled dance
amazed as each of us breathes air
incensed, in apple, pine and ash
we blaze, a sense of crackl'ng residue,
of blacken'd sap and coming fall,
in twisting wires of what we are,
of wood-grained muscle, fired by youth
and wrenching, cracking, spitting fire,
twisting, writhing, splitting off
in ember glowworms, fall and dim
and dull to gray, too soon
to cool, in gloaming dusk
of coals well-spent,
or if not well -

then full.