passing by the fire

in the empty room, with its shutters closed,
and its lights spent, i passed by the fire.

and i saw that it still burned, that it was even,
at that moment, poised between
the powers of ash and of ember,
wen the flame can choose to be
either raging or subdued in the arms
of what it has seduced on its bed
of fragrant grasses and dead wood.
he is the jagged piece of branch i brought in
yesterday, in the summer rain falling suddenly so hard.
he seems one of the gods of india, watching
with all the gravity of a first love
the one who asks of him that she be wrapped
in the lightning from before the worlds.

tomorrow i will stir,
the nearly cold flame, and doubtless
it will be a summer day like those
the sky offers to all the rivers, those of earth,
and those, darker ones, of blood. man and woman,
when do they ever know
that their passion is binding or coming apart?
what wisdom in their hearts could ever sense
that, as the light flickers,
their cry of joy becomes a cry of anguish?

morning fire,
the breathing of two people asleep,
the arm of one on the shoulder of the other.

and i who came
to open the room, let in the light,
i stop, i sit there, i watch you,
innocence of the sprawling limbs,
time so full it ceases to be.

- yves bonnefoy

(this is what all school reading should be like)