What The Fire Said

A bone-white moon, a red-slave sun,

Wild stars racing, ghosts on the run.

Thirst and darkness, light and desire,

Ashes and dreams and a river of fire.

The river is wide, the river is bright,

The river is a song from the heart of the sun.

The river is a copper god

Burning through the ragged night,

It calls for a sacrifice. 

Me, I'm a willing one. 

I jump from the world and I sink down deep,

What the fire can teach me, I hunger to learn.

And the fire said:

'I can live in your heart but you cannot live in mine,

And the deeper you touch me, the brighter I burn.

Now I’m taking your flesh, and I’m taking your face,

But I’m giving you one of my own in return.'

At the edge of the world lies a coil of flame:

A face of fire on a body of bone,

Burning and new and polished with light

Under the eye of the moon.

So I raise my face to the night’s black hand

And I howl at the moon and I howl at the wind.

I howl at the fire and I howl at the pain 

And I howl at the river that gives up its own.

The moon is a stain on the dawn’s pale light,

The red-slave eye of the sun stabs down.

I prowl like a thing spat out by the night:

Pain and light in a cage of bone.

A dying moon, a red-slave sun,

Wild winds racing, me on the run.

Thirst and knowing, light and desire:

Ashes and dreams from a river of fire.

  

Ashes and dreams and a heart of fire,

Thirst and longing, desire and light.

Another ghost gets caught between

The river’s edge and the hand of night,

And the bone-white moon and the red-slave sun,

And all that is lost, and all that is won,

And all that can and cannot be undone.

© David Bergen