I just want to remember
remember everything even as I'm forgetting
like whose house is this
whose dog am I petting
and why am I no longer standing but silently sitting
on just how I got here note that I won't be betting
am I permitted to be so bold by kissing these wayward
thoughts out of this storage like cold
and on me what lock do they hold
can I not guess without having to be told
green dances before my enraptured eyes
only too suddenly, it turns to gold
by throwing myself into the loving flame
I languish in its enveloping fold
and skim my fingertips lightly across the satin like
seam of its almost familiar face
so brilliantly bright and brazenly bold
in its dancing hot eyes there is a timid story to
tell and I know it will be told
someone took a merciless match to its wood
and watched it burn from where they stood
they did not care if what they did was bad or good
they only did it because someone else didn't think
they should
and all I can do is sit here and widely gape at its
breathtaking beauty as it slowly comes to its demise
feeling only self content to the point of nearly
seeming wishful and wise
I value the flame for it gives heat, peace and beauty
as it selflessly dies
and its never afraid of its own symbolic mortality
and at the end of its death it merely closes
its bright red, blue amber eyes...........
( written Feb 21,1992 am)