Poems and other drabbles

A Bonfire To Remember

The fire took flight
As we stared into the night,
Heating up our hands
And letting the hours creep by.
Hissing and cracking, going strong
As the sparks sailed up from the earth:
inert, as it was like
A graveyard, gathering soot
From the sparks that fell from the sky.

Marshmallows, beer bottles and our
Own bellows, building our fire up,
Growing hot.
The smoke in our face
Became a warm embrace, and worries fell
Down at our feet. Never had I known
Such a spell quite like this glow,
But the music kept playing
So we stamped to the beat.

It was eleven PM and anyone could say
There had never before been a night or a day
Like the night in which light first took form
To kiss the cold, cracked Earth.
When cavemen danced, pirouetted and
Clicked tongues in uproarious chants
As if to serenade the dance
Of embers, dipping, diving,
Celebrating a new civilization's birth.

The blaze starts to drop. That's when we stop.
To grab more branches or another
Bottle of beer, but the radio blared, though,
So I continue to stare and spot something
Between the logs.
Through the flittering  and fraying flames
An orange glow pulsates within the pine,
Highlighting the scars and singes in the wood
Glowing as bright as a neon line.

Come morning we gather and rub our eyes.
The fire died. And we're all tired.
We clean up the mess. We've no time to rest:
We drive home in the sun rise.

To towers of grey ,where Beetles crawl below
Just trying to earn their daily pay.
No sparks to be found on the ashen ground,
As we head on, homeward bound.

Yet as we turn on to the freeway
Mine fluttering eyes catch, on the skyline
The neon sunrise.
Although the jamboree is gone, a smile
Slips onto my lips.

And the warm embrace of the light from space
Is trying it's best to eclipse my face,
Although it flies by, sliding off the windshield.
I pray that this light will never yield.
Sliding through the cracks and lines,
Of the city's ribbed buildings, in symmetry,
Is the beat of vitality that flows bright and free,
Yet evaporates before we can see.