The wood stove is cold upon rising, metal
cold,
barely 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside
55 in the dimly lit room,
cold air echoing from the windows.
No fire has yet been started in the stove
upstairs,
but downstairs, in the laundry room—
an ash log, not fully consumed in the
night,
its underbelly still glowing red.
Winding some packing paper around cedar
chips,
wielding the ax to split several slender
strips
now set atop the paper, near the burning
embers,
and still more wood placed upon the
heap.
Soon a fire burns brightly in that large
stove,
then some cedar and pine set beside the
fire,
flue fully open, door ajar, to build a
blaze,
split wood waiting and ready to burst
aflame.
Not so upstairs, no red coals smoldering
cold metal feeling hard as death,
the night’s last log barely burned
yet lying lifeless in its ashen grave.
No embers to kindle a new fire here,
nothing to stir up into dancing flames—
no fire, no warmth, no friendliness
to warm my outside and soul within.
What shall I do? Half awake I must
wonder—
scraps of paper, slivers of hewn cedar,
and smaller limbs from a felled pine
tree—
a match, a flame, some wind, then fire.
Fire burning by my side, warming
slowly penetrating out through the chill
air,
light from flames crackling, expanding
metal:
and I, too, rekindled at 0400.
