Sacred Fire, Blue Earth

25 years upon this Earth     

 (Bet you thought I’d rhyme ‘Earth’ with ‘birth’)

Not ‘girth’ of course, for one so lean,

Patient to the max, kind in the plus,

Your big-hearted modesty

Could teach the rest of us.

Don’t need to be told

To be patient, or kinder:

Your boundless skinny love

A constant reminder:

How to Live,

How much to Give,

When Forget, Why Forgive.

Now ‘mirth’ rhymes with Earth

And how apropos

For one whose laughter cascades and flows,

Whose visage sports the smiles shared

With friend and soul-mate,

Kith and kin,

Delighted to be invited

To warm themselves at your mutable hearth:

Digital, electronic, a virtual berth

On the glory train,

On a riverboat

Bearing grain and gain,

Drifting on course

In gentle rain;

Where, catching your breath,

Coming up for air,

You can breathe freely––

A freedom so rare––

Liberty borne on wings beating air,

Seeking the heights, dipping at night,

Finding the level that’s right.

For who hasn’t wondered with famished hope

Now dangling, now in freefall,

At the end of the proverbial rope,

Who hasn’t wondered

When their day will come?

Looked to the world for sustenance,

Seeking aught, finding none?

Some too have wondered,

Star-crossed, wave-tossed,

Sea-worthy, drenched,

If the sacred fire

That sparked youth’s dreams

Had been untimely quenched.

Unapparent maybe,

Maybe hidden,

Like a red-gold fish

Darting through shoals,                   

Flashing its signal

From the blackest of holes.

Or on the beach, in the BBQ pit,

Banked by cindered coals:

The red-gold ember’s silence glows,

It lives and grows,

Waiting for the time to be right

To ignite

 Purpose with passion,

Passion with aim,

Style with fashion,

Fashion with game,

And game with gain.

And ‘worth’ is a word I’d readily rhyme

With Earth whose game must value time;

Worth for will and value added,

Worth for purpose brightly cladded,

Worth for imagination’s inclination,

For artful creation’s predestination,

For plans laid with quiet determination.

Today seek freedom in narrow by-ways;

Tomorrow find it on major highways.

Tomorrow uncover

The wonder of the mage.

Tomorrow discover

The Way of the sage.

There where

All the world’s a stage

With the best, you can

Strike a pose,

Take command,

Seek repose,

Birth a brand,

Countermand

Sleight of hand,

Collect and correct

Accounts payable,

Resurrect

What’s doable, what’s sayable,

Scalable, tradeable,

Night-and-dayable,

Take command,

Find repose,

Understand

The name of the Pose.

25 years upon this Earth    

Blue-eyed child of heady mirth,

Man of substance if not of girth,

Tall in truth, and forsooth

Giving the world tall orders:

Exceeding your brief,

Grave without grief,

Garnering a sheaf

Gold as the take-off

Flare of a rocket,

Lighter to bear

Than a leaf

In your pocket.

Not turning your cheek

For the sake of the show,

When you know what it’s worth,

You’re ready to go:

Giving tall orders,

Countermanding strife,

Crossing borders:

Channeling Life,

Without apology or disguise:

A universe to synthesize.