EIGHTEEN THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED SIXTY TWO

I lived the last ten years around fires,
bathed in smoke, baptised by flame,
burned and blackened and anointed with ash.
The colder the night the better. 
Tipi fires in a ring of Black Hills stones
on subzero nights. Sweat lodge fires, 
wood stacked high, the heart glowing with rocks 
gathered from the Pine Ridge of Nebraska. 
A dim flare wrapped in ribs and thin skin 
that only my smoky breathing betrayed.

I went through two hickory axe handles 
the past ten years, but the same steel-toed 
boots protect my feet as I split wood 
with little more skill than before. 
I learned to start small and dry 
and slowly add bigger and bigger. 
But never bigger than I can break 
with a blow from my foot. 
And not a white man's fire, 
too big and sitting far away, 
but an Indian's, small, sitting close.
I haven't mastered flint and steel
or a leather thong fire bow,
but give me just one match
and I will keep you warm.

I tended fires mindfully. 
I let them burn me willfully. 
I snorted out the black mucous of smoke. 
Blasphemed the east wind and wet wood. 
Singed the hair on my hands and eyebrows,  
touching what never should be touched,
daring to look at what should not be seen.
I made love to the fire of a woman, 
then smoldered in the blankets 
as the hearth cooled to ash. 
I cursed the smoke of a mistended fire 
while reading Thick Nhat Hanh on mindfullness, 
and experienced satori.

I still seek out the coldest night, 
the blackest sky and the darkest moon. 
The tree-cracking nights when a body hinges 
between life and death and only 
a thin flame with the memory of sun 
convinces one to stay here 
with the hooting owls and howling coyotes 
and the near unbearable beauty of stars. 

Ten years ago, it was water I needed,
"enough to survive, yet always thirsty". 
Now, with my eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty two, 
I have gathered the last wood, circled the last stone ring.
I finally learned how to tend love like a fire.
And I turn to you, my Flame. I ask you 
to warm me, brighten me, smudge me, 
soak me in the curing smoke of your name. 
Let me feed you, glow you 
to red coals tinged with yellow 
and flickering with serpent blue tongues. 
Let me turn you over 
and watch your belly pulse 
with the rhythm of my breathing.

I hold you and I do not burn. 
I do not burn but I am warmed. 
I am warmed but I am not consumed. 
I am not consumed but you are nourished.
You are nourished and we give birth to love and beauty.
We flicker into each other, lick the smoking 
curves of cottonwood bark, shimmer 
in the heat lenses of canyons, kiss 
the dancing lips of whirling dust devils, 
and lift on our thermals the wings 
of red tail hawks spinning circles 
bluer than my eyes. 

Beloved Flame,
we have become 
fuel enough 
for each other.



© 2003 by Richard W. Todd

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