Winterlong

“I will use the coal you gave me/ make a timeless masterpiece”
[Kelli Schaefer, “Black Dog”]

We learn when we are young that even the destruction of fire preserves;
The conservation of energy, he said, means there is nothing in total to be lost.

Ash packs the road side, thick from the stacks smoke rises each morning,
We never imagine its eventual fall as we sleep or lie awake in our cold or warm beds.

This is useless, this keeping warm, essential heat escapes like breath, like smoke.
What is this we burn when silence won’t obey, when the masterpiece evades?

We huddle together for warmth, so many hands around the fire telling lies,
so many uttering tongues, so many chances for a verse to catch, so many germs.

Time burns, colors shift, cloth fades, even marble crumbles back to ashen heaps.
This is process, there is nothing else, let forms change, let potential collect.

Energy: a thin black line, a cloud transforming, a vein of mineral, a dusted plain.
This gift given, without intention, will someday explode into being & disappear.