The Homefire

This started out as a Wordless Wednesday post, but I love the picture so much I had to Use My Words. Making this Wordy Wednesday.

This is our firepit up in the country. You can just make out my husband’s profile off to the left and though you can’t see it I recall that my son is curled at his feet, mesmerized by the flames. My 17-year old nephew took the picture and me, I’m just out of frame doing not much of anything at all.

The Catskills house has a pacifying effect on this family. We don’t bicker up there. I don’t know if it’s something magical in the air or well water, or maybe the mountain view changes our collective seratonin uptake. Whatever — I’m not complaining.

I was looking for a poem about campfires to accompany the post because poets haz pretty words and I needed backup. Happily, I discovered Linda Parsons Marion. Her poem is technically about a homefire but close enough. I love it.

I’ve learned where the lines are drawn
and keep the privet well trimmed.
I left one house with toys on the floor
for another with quiet rugs
and a bed where the moon comes in…
Home where I sit in the glider, knowing it needs oil,
like my own rusty joints. Where I coax blackberry to dogwood
and winter to harvest, where my table is clothed in light.
Home where I walk out on the thin page
of night, without waving or giving myself away,
and return with my words burning like fire in the grate.

(from “Home Fires: Poems” copyright ©1997 Linda Parsons)