Hello friends. I’m taking a brief hiatus for the rest of 2024, so I’ve scheduled some old and new poems for you to enjoy while I’m away. Cheers. - Chris
bon-fire
Before it got too dark to see
we gathered
fallen leaves
and snap-dry sticks
and tepeed them there
in the pit.
My father crumpled up
yesterday’s newspaper,
my brother struck the match.
With our backs to the night,
we gathered
together, half of each
lit like the underside of a leaf.
We stayed
until the flames
licked the bones
down to coals,
and spoke our stories
over the ash.
This poem originally appears in Solace: Poems for the Broken Season.
Every word here is well chosen, measured, and constructed. Kind of like a good fire. ;)
I appreciate the relationships and the different actions of each member relayed in this poem. The bones and ash in the last lines evoke pathos in me for those relationships—as I overlay my own complex stories over
these words. Thank you.