Poems in Progress: Modern Fires

The orange glow intrigues me, draws my eye,
As if the ethereal flicker is
Encoded in my DNA or has
At least become part of a predesigned
Neural network that longs for the crackle.
What did they think about millions of years
Ago when they realized coals from lightning
Could be carried miles away? As they watched
The small flame grow, what did they envision
In their phosphorescent imaginations?
What stories told? Legends created? Worlds
Ending or heroes saving the tribe’s ember?

In my lap, Frederick Douglass’s life
Flames forth from a biography:
The words crackling through my brain as if
Histories have become part of my blood.
A culture steeped deeply with flaws and growth
Makes up as much of me as my two shins
Feeling the heat of the fire. Ideas
Stack on top of each other, battle for
Supremacy, even just inside worlds
Made in Douglass’s own head. Questions jump
Around the air about Constitutions,
Hypocrisies, Religion’s comeuppance.

Inside the vinyl shell of the camper
My family sits before the glow of
Their screens. Absorbed by the touch of pixels,
Their hands glide through flying fabricated
Fruit, or fish tanks filled with simulated
Seaweed, or concocted countries battling
Over wholly invisible borders.
The fire’s starting to die out. I watch,
My mind still amazed by the sentiment
That time stretches through the flames and my body
Back to the beginnings. Still I can’t help
But wonder if we’re approaching an end.