Good Kindling ~ Poems by Virginia Lee Sprague

She builds a fire,

with brown sugar, some spit and pieces of jewelry,

a ritual for which she feels ready,

the head Sorceress has gone a-gathering,

looking for bits of feather, a discarded snake skin,

weeping rocks from a mountain spring.

At twilight, the apprentice begins her work,

begins the mystery of making fire,

from sugar, water and metal,

the secret is in her sweet breath,

and the earnestness of her assistants,

the wonder on their faces glows,

as they bring their own interpretations of good kindling.

They bring:

tissues soaked with wasted tears,

pieces of a love letter from someone now forgotten,

shreds of newspaper riddled with bad news,

a charm bracelet that has lost its charm,

fragrant sticks of cedar and ash.

She blows on the pile, it is hot but there is no flame,

she digs a hole in a wall of brown sugar,

peers into the pyre she has built,

her tongue tests the opening,

it tastes warm but needs more fluid.

Again a mystery,

reminiscent of her early days as a child alchemist,

things that are wet sometimes burn,

dry substances are sometimes found weeping,

looks that are cold, will singe,

a burning love can freeze a heart into cold orbit.

Obsessed with the struggle to defy the laws of physics,

her hearth becomes a prison, a laboratory,

then suddenly, a place of victory,

a sweet, moist flame has risen,

from twigs, saliva, breath and confection,

as darkness falls.