The First Fire

Before the stag, before the snare,

there was only fire.

Not flame to warm the hand,

but the ember that split the void,

the seed that taught darkness to bear light.

I hunt that spark.

The night stretches endless,

and every star is a lantern

dangling just out of reach.

The constellations taunt me,

their shapes drawn of beasts and gods,

all quarry, all vanished.

I climb mountains of ash,

trace rivers that run backward,

listen at the mouths of caves

where the first breath still shivers

against the stone.

My bow hangs silent.

No arrow can pierce the sky.

Yet still I walk,

driven by the hunger

to hold what began all holding.

The fire flees before me,

but the horizon smolders—

a line of red across the black,

a promise I cannot release.

And I follow,

as all hunters must,

into the furnace of beginning.