Spirit Fire

Tented desert tribes first questioned back
To the secret midnight of conception,
While watching planets move in measured ways,

Creating the first recorded memory science
Forming the prescriptions for spring festivals
And set the time for Passover, Mardi Gras and Ramadan.

I sit watching the same bright diamonds of Orion
Pushing light a billion years old, knowing
it could be part of the beginning cosmic passion

To create life out of the convulsions and blazing death
In the soft blue sky beds of fluid time,
Endowing me with memory fire from the furnace of a star.

As I watch this reflected starlight in sky reaches
It makes me know that earthly life and the heavens
Must have something to do with each other

And to heed Goethe's stern warning that, "anyone
Who destroys all illusion within himself or others
Will be punished tyrannically by his own internal fire."

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