After Cellar Fireplace

After Cellar Fireplace

What looks the strongest has outlived its term.

The future lies with what's affirmed from under.

                                        Seamus Heaney

                                        From the Canton of Expectation 

The last owner's ashes

have been hidden within

and underneath

the three or four sticks

of wood they put down

to cover them.  In a hurry,

they let it mostly cool

before going out, possibly

forever, sniffing creosote

all the way to their car,

their hearts hearts of iron.

We'll never know the last

of what they burned

and it being late

autumn the smoke is no

surprise and the easterly

breeze takes it on its own

and introduces it to

a whole new way

of living.  

Have you ever wondered what 

was the stuff of other

folks innermost internments?

Their roping themselves in

and the duty guards alert,

the cliche of prison

wire glinting in the seemingly

benign light of the night?  (be-

cause we all know dark, possibly

more than light, is anything

but benign).  Letters home?  Letters

from home?  Appropriate how

holding them over the coals 

is similar to first opening them,

with their hot flashes

of hope.  The stove's cold

the coal bin's hold is down to a day

maybe a day 

more.  Shoveling through

someone's love 

and thumb-rubbing the black back

of the dry cedar, I've come to

sense there is

a real weight  to ghosts.

And they puff up 

when they're roused, and then

being roused, they come back 

down not far from where it was

they'd been taken, their final rest

settling the score for 

whatever they were before

they were pushed forward to be

ravished by the fire, tired 

and prayed on,

and even though it might not

blaze, it will do the job.