BURNING BALSAM FIR AND BISON DUNG

On this cool damp morning 
I burn the thin gray 
bark and white flesh of last 
year's christmas tree.
Heat raises balsam oil 
to the surface where it vaporizes 
and scent rises with the heat 
that vaporizes the mist sifting 
through the tipi smoke slit.
It swirls around my face 
and I breathe deep enough 
to weave deeper time 
into the evocative now.

What lets go of what 
in a fire? Does wood let go 
the flame? Does flame let go 
the heat? Does heat let go 
the smoke? Does smoke let 
the ash go or ash 
let go the wood? Burning 
has as its end ash,
and ash, cold, is blown 
away. Or wet, dissolves 
into the earth. Or buried is pressed 
in thin lens of remembrance.

          pine tar in moist air
          musk on moist fingers
          snowflakes becoming tears
          touching the animal heat
          of flushed faces

In the black and red coals I offer 
to the four directions four 
sacred buffalo chips
that smudge the damp air,
aromatic with sap and rain
and soaked with bison smoke.
Ash falls into my hair like snow
and finds no heat to melt it.

I will soon be covered and blow 
away with desire or dissolve 
with longing or crystallize into a thin 
gray seam of flesh memory,
still holding the form of love
in the blackened hearth stones,
like the velvet ash of bison dung
remembers the form of the gut.


© 2002 by Richard W. Todd

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