Woodstove Dreams

The South Shore is chilly today, with the jet stream pushing cold polar air southward across the Lake. A sublime Autumn chill may hang out with us all week long, as our bodies still crave the celebration of August, time spent sunning on the beach or working in relationship with still growing food. Instead, yesterday I lit my woodstove in the afternoon, retreating inwards toward myself and my fire while I let my cat be fascinated by the mother deer with two fawns, and by the hummingbird who visited my feeder for some rest. Yesterday, I needed to give my curiosity a break to recover it again for the week ahead.

My woodstove gives me the most lovely warmth, while it burns away years of history. Each piece of wood I burn is a record of an individual history, full of years of bounty and years of withering. What did the trees of this fire dream of before now? How did they perceive the world? I sit, I wonder, and I listen to the crackle of the fire as history heats my heart. I’m thinking I will post poetry on Sundays and essays on Wednesdays for now until my big move in November. We’ll see how it goes.

In the flame of the woodstove
Witness the dreams of the universe
As embers weave their way through the air before 
Revealing themselves like stars
Just more delicate
Fewer parts of hydrogen to fuel 
Your heart.
They are multitude and small
Simple as a hallucination
The one that tells you that you turned off your
Alarm Clock, that morning the sun had not yet peaked through 
The window to your naked body. 
Your alarm clock still sang
The sound of waves crashing, even though 
Those same waves are frozen now.

The same waves that made rainbows in the mists of the sea caves
The same waves where we kissed and first began to dream
Of things like windows, things like orchards, things like birch trees
Those same waves who are frozen now
And without motion are they still waves?

The universes hallucinations, as
Vast as the love between all the people
When it shrinks and cracks between two, 
Rekindles between others
And healing must take place.
Healing as though humans were stars
Or embers
With a constant spark,
Meant to be bright,
To transcend without a wisp or a name.
Yet to be the material of us all.
A staggering bend between Aspen trees and sandstone cliffs
The dream of a spark
And little more
Along your beaten path
To those waves between us.


Listen to the crackling of the woodstove,
As it boasts the story of 20, 30 years of life,
A crackle as 1999 burns