In cold darkness we catch sight of firelight.
Shiver-desp’rate, hungry-groping for warmth,
those lost, the flicker calls to like a deep addiction.
Chafing, gnawing, aching, crawlers inch
North with a calcified compass singleminded.
Sludging through swamps, trudging on slow trails
some drop spent, never coiling cozy, dry, content.
Walkers fresh sitting, spin hard-travel tales;
Resters trace their paths through recent lived toil.
Road wearied, beaten and bruised they huddle the blaze.
Rare eyes turn back to the coal-black yawn,
knowing light is best thrown as seed for walkers lost.
They, now duty drawn to leave their post,
step meekly on untravelled trails to light fires far
Their path fresh blackened, some crave new-sparked light
mashing their flint at damp barren cold earth.
Dark-strained eyes chase memories of hot bright fiction,
hoping flames arrive with flash they hunch
over drenched wood piles many never reminded
what work kept wind in the bonfire sails.
Flickers wink out alone with no fuel to be spent.
The wisened and humble seek kindling bales,
toiling in darkness for fuel and oil.
Wrapped in twice worn night, selfless stoics set their gaze
to a future long after they’ve gone,
when some earnest young sparker still mindless the cost,
staggers forward in hope to find host
for the seedlings of fire cast in embers and char.