Being The Fire

 The Fallen, 2004 (c) Rick Sievers

I woke this morning feeling very sad, like there's no place in our world for a man poet dreamer idealist...too sensitive, too nice, too unskillful. I sat at my window for a time and then went out on the crystal strewn grasses of the frosty field. This world is so luminous when you really experience it. It can be so painful too. I came back to my desk and opened up an old journal from a decade past. A Compassionate Spirit had given me loving words to sustain me:

“Be the fire you seek to warm yourself by.

Be the flame and others will come.

A flame never burns alone.”

Then I opened another journal and right there the last poem I ever wrote for my beloved friend on Whidbey Island:

We walk

into the fire .

We live

in the burning.

We fly

within the smoke.

Finally I opened a journal to a prayer I heard in my heart when I was walking in the New Mexico desert four years ago.:

"God, consume me with a story 

that will spark healing in our world. 

Let me be ashes in Your hearth. 

Let me be a memory of a deep cold night 

spent in the light and heat of Your love."

Sometimes the spirit that can save you from despair is your own historical self, coming forward in time to remind you

of the praises in this world.

Am I willing to be a fool for my longings? 

Am I open to being saved by remembering 

the Compassionate One's voice? 

It's hard to remain present in this world 

that seems to be so full of self-inflicted fear. 

I cling to the love I know is real... 

that's the only thing that seems to last. 

Today, what do you cling to? 

What is worthy of your one beautiful blazing heart?

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Copyright Words and Images (c) Rick Sievers 2011