…he fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass
and with the tiniest dry twigs.
– Jack London (“To Build a Fire”)
A fair piece from the Yukon,
Jack—nothing warms cold bones
like a good fire. We, too, need
a flame to feed a woodstove
oak, the standing dead and fallen
to adversity and time,
and start with broken posts:
split coastal redwood pencil-thin
into a chimney teepee thatch
on crumpled newsprint
before the match leaps to catch
a hungry blaze, inside
shadows dance and touch,
begging brittle Manzanita’s
hard red heart that dulls a chain,
severed limbs of lichened skeletons
wait to burn hot and easily
to prepare the seed, lick the oak
with fire. And glowing early
morning coals banked in ash
start Manzanita sticks a flash.
