Fire

Oh, how I love a fire,

coaxing it to life, kindling

with small sticks and twigs,

a few scraps of paper.

There’s an art to building the grid,

constructing a square frame

or fabricating a teepee,

giving the fire enough air to breathe

while providing sufficient structure for the heat to build,

leading to that moment of delight

when it really catches, the first tiny tongues of flame licking the logs,

until, finally, it blazes into real life,

becomes a force of its own,

making you step back and admire it,

then find a good stick

to poke and prod, push this log

a bit farther that way, tilt this one slightly in the other direction.

Throw more logs on, crush the bottom logs into embers, create living coals to glow deep into the night.