Before Fire

sam kearley

To love you like a fire is to treat you as a fuel.

Flickering from branch to branch 

till green is gray and ash admits no spark.

Tongues of red beset upon their forks and knives to feast.

Our old grandmother microbe clinging to a volcanic underwater buffet.

Her name was Tṛṣṇā. The Craving. The Thirst.

And all her children know: that passion is an empty stomach.

But in this mind a-flowing there is light without a flame.

No fuel smoke or flicker. There’s a picture even when we close our eyes.

Before there was fire, there was light

and luminosity does not hunger.

It is the thread by which consciousness is woven.

Though death may unravel, it cannot be cut.

In the shifting prism of experience it dances from form to form.

Reflecting, refracting. 

Prolific without devouring. 

To love you like a light is to see you as you are.