FIRE
or
If
Tangerine Were a Gem
By
Jonathan Marcus
meeting
by fate just this once
their
first and last dance together
cheek-to-cheek
this
indelible final intimacy
the
lion’s fangs open the floodgates
of
the gazelle’s neck
and
in full final surrender, merging,
they
become one
though
we find it disturbing
life
itself deems this union
perfect.
other
unions are forged
in
each creative act, each over-reach
of
line or color, word or number, scent or sound
all
are leaping and fusing
as
lions and gazelles
meeting
and bonding this perfect once
like
fingers of flame
hugging
the belly
of
the blackening, shrinking log.
One
Halloween the pond froze solid
but
a bonfire of oak palettes
flickered
the masks and costumes
made
your face sweat and your back freeze
it
lit frosted treetops and roared.
in
morning, hot nuggets of melted glass,
jewelled
mementos, still too hot to touch.
No
shadows there in the firebox
where
flames and lumber merge:
the
log, humble and aromatic
feeds
the flame becomes the flame
it
licks and feints and dances
won’t
be still, can’t be photographed --
the
flame sketches and prances
banana vanilla
mango indigo palomino
and tangerine –
those
tangerine tinctures of pure heat
assemble
like glowing pueblos,
crumble
in charcoal cliffs
under the hissing and chinking
faintly wind-chiming
union
of deepening darkness
and
bouncing dancing hot light.
They
say fire requires fuel, heat and oxygen. But they forgot the mystery
that
makes the fuel, heat and oxygen
make
fire.
It’s
the spectator sport for poets.