The bright red glow of wildfire flared up
into the night, a terrible, beautiful, changing glow.
We couldn’t not look, students of fire
that we are, and I was suddenly too aware
of the dry and brittle parts of myself, places
parched as these Cimarron mountains.
How easily it can all go up.
We are asked to live this life
that can combust in an instant,
asked to pull the unstoppable into our lungs.
The glow continued to blaze, to leap up.
It burned. I could not stop watching
the tower of flame, the way it charged the night.
Posts Tagged ‘fire’
At the Edge
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, wildfire on June 30, 2026| 2 Comments »
This, Too, Is What I Was Born For
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, fire, gratefulness, husband on December 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.
In the Bleak Midwinter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, cold, fire, loneliness, warmth on December 3, 2025| 6 Comments »
In the midst of cold,
past the fringes of darkness,
is this place of fire
where we huddle
at the edge of warmth
to relieve our chill
and regard each other’s faces
in the glow,
where we learn stories
of the shadows
and meet our own
darkness.
Loneliness is, perhaps,
believing there is no room
for us in the circle.
Belonging is knowing
every one of us
is the flame.
One Too Late
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, timing on October 19, 2025| 4 Comments »
only after the blaze
has leapt its stone ring
procuring a bucket of water
You belong to this world with
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, bluegrass, fire, music, wildfire on July 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
its early morning thunderstorm
that wakes you with a clap,
this world of early morning rain
and dusty midday paths,
this world with plumes of wildfire
that fill the air by evening,
the valleys thickly choked with smoke,
the mountains disappearing.
You belong to this world of tinder.
Sometimes it hurts to belong.
You belong to the burning world of fear
as much as the world of song.
You most surely belong to music,
to this world of euphoric dancing
And as you dance, you smile,
dance as if it’s your calling.
They sing of constant sorrow.
You dance. The ash keeps falling.
One Reason to Show Up
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, service, water on June 6, 2025| 10 Comments »
the whole world is burning
and the only way to bring it water,
the bucket of you
Once grief was bonfire
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, fire, grief, transformation on September 4, 2024| 7 Comments »
consuming everything I touched.
Every surface. Every person.
Every minute, every thought.
Nothing went unlicked by flame.
Everything charred. Seared.
Scarred. Ash.
It scared and unmade me.
I’d never before
been so nothing.
Had never before lost
every wall, every line,
every idea, every mask.
Such a merciless,
astonishing teacher.
Tonight, grief is more a candle.
Sometimes, I feel the heat on my skin,
smell the acrid singe of my hair.
But for now, familiar with
its gentle light, I’m more attuned
to shadow, more at home in dark.
Now, this small flame of sorrow
reminds me who I am,
who I’ve loved, and
how I would not give up
a half Planck length of love.
Not that loss is easier, no,
but god help me, I’ve learned
it’s a gift to burn.
Making Peace with My Inner Fire Fighter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, grief, inner conflict, loss, trust on April 4, 2024| 22 Comments »
She’s always ready to run to the rescue,
trained in putting out housefires,
wildland fires, grease fires, electrical fires.
Explosions? She’s prepared to vent,
quench, flank and set up a collapse zone.
Child swallowed a ring?
She arrives in minutes.
Accident on the street? She’s pulling on
her uniform before the call is over.
She’s saved me thousands of times.
She’s always been like this—
keen to fix any problem. Capable. Strong.
I’m stunned by her abs, her biceps,
her focus as she goes where she’s needed.
Who could blame her for wanting
to put out this fire that’s been flaring
in me for almost three years.
Please, I say, don’t put it out.
It just needs to burn.
She eyes me strangely.
But it’s taking down whole structures,
she says. I nod.
Whole structures, I agree.
So much I knew is now ash.
But—she says, extinguisher in hand.
Please, I say. It’s okay if it all comes down.
I’m thinking of how much more I can see
as unnecessary things I’ve built submit.
It is in her to fix. To save. To make things better
in the way she knows how.
But she is learning to trust me in this
as I am learning to trust the wisdom of flame.
She shakes her head and walks away.
I watch as the fire continues to blaze.
You Ask How I Got These Scars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged addiction, choices, fire, self-wounding on February 6, 2024| 7 Comments »
Standing too close to the fire—
not that I wanted to be burned,
just that it felt so good to be hot,
even when it was too much,
even when it was way too much
Tinder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, fire, language, morning on January 8, 2024| 8 Comments »
Sometimes, long before the sun rises,
you whisper good morning,
and it’s as if you’ve built a small fire
in the hearth of predawn,
each syllable a small flame
leaping up in the dark,
a welcome kindling.
It takes so little to fill the room
with warmth, with light.
Hearth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, love on February 13, 2023| 4 Comments »
A fireplace is made for flame.
Even when dark, empty, cold,
its purpose is unchanging.
It was made for flare, for flicker,
for blaze, for light; it was made
to cast warmth, to hold glow.
The soul is a kind of fireplace.
Love itself the flame.
Even in our chillest hour,
it’s clear what we are made for.
Aftermath
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, beauty, fire on December 16, 2022| 11 Comments »
For years, I have run
from this anger.
Tonight I stopped running,
let the anger catch me,
let it burn in me,
a wild conflagration,
it terrified me,
and then I watched it leave.
For the first time in years,
I am not running.
How still it is.
Whatever has turned to ash
was not essential.
What is left is so raw,
so beautiful.
Serotinous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, effort, fire, lodgepole pine, opening on May 22, 2022| 6 Comments »
Even the word surrender
suggests some agency,
but perhaps
what is asked of us
is zero. Perhaps
we are like the seed
of the lodgepole pine
that opens through
no effort of its own.
It needs the heat
of a wildfire blaze.
Then the seed is released
into the very blackened,
desolate world
that seemed hellbent
on destroying it,
but it is the carbon-rich
soil left by the fire
that feeds the seed
and helps the tree grow.
No surrender.
No effort.
Who could ask
for the fire?
The seed did not.
It did nothing at all.
And now, the pine,
how green, how tall.
After Reading the Old Mother’s Day Card
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, grief, mother's day on January 14, 2022| 7 Comments »
Again, the heart
is a too-tender thing—
its wild ache spreads
through the tinder
of the chest
until all is ravaged
and all is singed
and red is too red
and raw is too raw
and each feral beat is
a bell clanging run,
but there’s nowhere
to run to,
and love is too
goddamn alive
and each pulse
spills more
kerosene
it is a long time
before I feel
the stars
reach down
to hold me.
When Living on a Tiny Island
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, fire, island, letting go on December 20, 2021| 11 Comments »
It was a dream, but I tell you
everything was on fire in the house—
I knew the whole island would burn,
and I had to choose what to take
and I ran past the old records
and thought, I have those songs in me,
and I ran past the books
and thought, I have those stories,
and I ran past the photos
and thought, those memories
are already with me,
so I ran, chased by flames,
toward the ocean
with the only thing
I can really carry, this buoyant love,
and I dove in, hands empty,
able to cup the water
and pull through the tide.
The salt water lifted me,
whispered in waves: letting go
is what keeps you alive
*
Hi friends, sorry the poem is late! We had no internet last night. Happy almost solstice–I have never been so ready for the light.
Love, Rosemerry
Ode to the Bic Lighter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, fire, light on February 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
My first lighter I found in a parking lot—
a smooth red plastic tube that fit
in my pocket. I knew playing with fire
was dangerous. I knew I wanted
to learn how. I remember trying again
and again to get the right purchase
with my thumb on the serrated sparkwheel.
I rolled and rolled until my skin was raw,
until at last the brief flame sputtered then died.
It wasn’t long before it came second nature—
the smooth flick needed to produce a spark,
the slight pressure on the red tongue
to maintain steady flame.
I learned how it burns
to be lit up too long,
but once you know how to make light,
how easy it is to bring it with you
everywhere you go.
This poem is published in the wonderful ONE ART Poetry Journal
Bonfire in the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, fire, new year, transformation on December 24, 2020| 6 Comments »
I throw in any tallies
I’ve been keeping,
the ones that record
who did what and when.
I throw in all the letters
I wrote in my head but didn’t send.
I throw in tickets I didn’t buy
to places I didn’t visit.
I throw in all those expectations
I had for myself and the world last year
and countless lists of things I thought I should do.
I love watching them ignite,
turn into embers, to ash.
I love the space they leave behind
where anything can happen.
Beyond Touch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, fire, soul, tetrameter on October 7, 2020| 6 Comments »
And if a cheek should find a chest,
and if a tongue should graze a lip,
and if a hand should meet a curve,
and if a hip should stir a hip,
then we might know the flesh as kindling,
know the skin as eager spark,
know the lover as the flame
that helps unthaw the frozen dark.
But if a heart should stoke a heart,
and if a soul should fuel a soul,
then we might know the self as unself—
ravaged, ardent, blazing, whole.
But No Hiding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, wildfire on June 13, 2020| 5 Comments »
It is the job
of the wildfire
to crave ignition,
to seek more fuel,
to turn at the whim
of the wind.
The wildfire’s job
is to burn
whatever it meets,
to incite it to flame,
to not care what it chars
how it ashes.
I want to not see it
as it leaps and claims,
want to not smell it
as it fills my lungs,
becomes me,
want to not notice
the part of me
ready to burn.
Too Close to the Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, light, poem, poetry on December 31, 2019| 3 Comments »
Just for a moment
my hair was on fire
and just for a moment
orange flames
rose from me
and just for a moment
I knew what it was
to be candle—
even now I can see it
beside my face,
how before I was afraid
I thought, how beautiful.