Finally

Each year I am lead back
to this tree
that gave birth to me
I crouch under its branches
and tend the embers of a long ago fire
I have worked so stubbornly to keep alive
The spark is imperceptible
but my eye of knowing
knows what it knows, what can't be
spoken, but only wished for-
I fan forgotten flames
and stir cold hard ash with unshakable fixation

Years peal away and life calls
me to crawl out
from the den of the brooding tree
and stop trying
to breathe breath back into a body blue
and rigid, whether right or wrong,
there is no one to blame- only blind longing-
has kept me tethered to the same spot
year after year, turning over the same
stones and asking the same questions
desperate and hungry
Until, at last, a new question plays at the edge
of my mind: Do I have the courage
to let the fire extinguish fully and finally
and, after so long,
sit in cold, hard darkness?