of: Firelight *

while electricity brings these words to you

its elusive ancestor has far longer been 

our seer, our advisor, our confidant 

in la Cueva de las Manos, fire

lit our dark descent into the deep damp

then illuminated the walls 

we would leave traces of ourselves on

waiting for our living legacies

to exhume; by firelight

we mummified, we sailed, we discovered

we pillaged, we made war &

waged love for millennia

long before we caught lightning

then cupped it in our hands

it was through flint & kindle 

we began to understand

darkness

before Webb or Wright took flight

before Copernicus or cathedrals

poets & Prometheans

began to unravel our universe beside 

wick & wax - wooing

the kosmos onto paper

long before pixel, before pixie dust, 

there was smoke & ash & brimstone

&

long before you, or i,

primordial plasma 

raged beyond the star-punched curtain

birthed & birthing into being 

the same forces we no longer

calculate by candle & quill

but through plastic boxes - sprinkled with

precious metals, twinkling & beating

with currents, so i can propose:

“consider: firelight”

with its temper & tolerance, consider:

summoning secrets through smoke & consider

how all flames lead to ash: the healing 

burn, the blister & the bond 

lastly, consider:

how much more final 

an extinguishing kiss

than 

the cold, automatic 

flip of a switch

”half-written in the dark, edited by light” - 2024