Sacred Fire Poetry

Submitted by Richard Bienvenu

Tending the sacred fire at night when the rest of the camp are sleeping safely cocooned in their tents can be unnerving if not sometimes uniquely inspiring. I took a notebook with me with the idea of writing some thoughts and feelings.

It had been almost two months since my return from a fabulous trip to Turkey where I travelled with my friend, Ismail, and was still in some ways reeling from the experience. As I started writing what came out was poetry. The writing kept me company and had me swimming in a realm of lofty thoughts. I share some of this with you.

#1
By the fire
I sit soul in hand.
Sunlight scatters through the trees
Wind manipulates the branches.

This sacred place
sacred space
A time of no time
Where the world stops
And we are renewed.

Fire sings fire dances
Fire calls to me
"Begin again," it says
"I will light the way
Call you to renew."

Call you again and again
Call you to the circle.

#2
The wind speaks my name
The elk, the cougar
The bear crashes through the woods
The creek moves on a thousands legs.

The smoke curls itself
into endless shapes
infinite gestures of rising
and falling
of blending and moving through and through
through me, through you.

#3
I am vast consciousness
willing itself free
Willing itself to be
through the mirror of eternal love,
eternal light, eternal oneness.
The brilliant flavors of the subtlety,
the boldness of existence.

And I turn like the fire
like the flame
like the sound
like the wind
like the rain,
The summer and winter
The flowers in August
The shine of remembrance
The looking glass into
infinite mind
infinite space
infinite oneness
the fire again beckoning me
renew, renew.

#4
If I shattered all existence
with a sweet sound from my voice
would I still move in concert
with the atoms that build the flowers?

Would I still hear the sun
as it rumbles in ecstasy
over the morning's horizon?

Would I incline myself toward you?

When I speak of the Beloved
call His name,
will He still kiss my cheek
as I nestle in His arms at midnight?

Would I still feel the movement
of the flower?
Would I still know justice
when it is due?
Will the wind lift me
up above the trees?
Would I still know the
passing of my existence
in this form of no form?

#5
I am willed into your heart.
My heart and yours are inseparable.
Distance means nothing and yet
I miss you.

I miss your dark eastern eyes the way
they shine
I miss the way my heart beat
when we were together
miss watching you pray.

Yet there is nothing I can do
but move on. You so far away
after your dreams.
I feel we will never see each other again.
And even if we do it won't be
the same you, the same me.

We will have changed, things
will have shifted.
Our importance to each other
will have moved
this way and that.

But Allah threw us together for a reason
and then
pulled us apart.

Once you asked, my friend,
"Why do you love me so much?"
I said, "I don't know.
Allah put us together and then
filled my heart with love.
Who am I to question
the designs of Allah?"

The gifts come and the gifts go.
For me it showed that my life
is moving, to expect the un-expected,
that there are more people to love,
more friends waiting for you
that life gets better as you open up,
awaken and devote your self
to service...
or maybe...
it's none of that.

Who am I to know the designs of Allah?
so...
I'll not try to question, try
not to control.
I'll just fling my
dreams into Your vast ocean
we'll see what surfaces,
what washes ashore.

#6
This is Spirit's time, not mine
I serve the will of the Spirit,
do what I am beckoned to do.

The cool twilight breeze fans
the flames, the fire burns
more steadily, more brightly.

The fire feeds off the oxygen
as we feed off the wind
from Spirit.

The wind blows where it will
of its own design, of its own...
magnificence,
abundant, ever-flowing
without end.

Does the fire run from the
delight of the wind as
it plays in its hair, lifts it arms,
its dresses, its robes?

Why do we seek shelter from the cry of the wind?
Is it too much?
Why do we resist the knock of the Spirit?
Hide from its supplications?
Run from its force?

We hide in a rickety house,
batten down the hatches.
But the screen door bangs,
the shutters flail and break free,
the tiles rip from the roof,
the siding peels and there we are
left naked in the gale,
our clothes ripped from our bones.

There is no escape,
the wind of Spirit takes no prisoners,
we are annihilated by its love, its persistence,
its other-worldly impossible force.

#7
I sat last night by the fire
weary from a long day of service.
But a good weary
not one of complaints.

The questers on the hill
forging their lives from the heat of the flames,
facing themselves,
their pride, their fears, their doubts, their questions,
their darkness, the long journey into night.

The night of loss
the night of awakening
the night when our dreams
show us the face of God.

I sat before the fire weary
from a day of service,
my thoughts drifting in and out
eyes heavy -- stay awake!
My eyes swimming staring at the flames.

I dream eyes wide open
the fire transforms into
something else, otherworldly.
My consciousness, sense of self
vanishes, engulfed by burning wood.

#8
I rise up carried on the wind,
flames dance beneath me.
I am one with smoke
I am the smoke rising up.

Above the treetops I float
mingling in the sky
the clouds my brothers
the moon my concubine

I am graced by the sun
shining its light its essence
up my gleaming pot-marked body.

I am the light in the eye of the wolf
as he dances across the lonely tear-filled landscape.

I am one with the bear
as it lumbers through the clearcut,
fur rippling, muscles taut,
breathing heavy, waiting for the dawn.

The dog barks, I howl at the moon
I sway with the branches of
the tall old fir tree.

The wisdom of the ancients
affixed to my skin.
The heart of the wood
coursing with silent knowledge.

I become the knower and
start as the known
above and beyond
all impossible existence.

My heart dies in the eyes of the fire,
my heart becomes the fire itself
burning, burning,
forever burning.

#9
You call me the ancient of days
beyond all impossible existence
the one you seek
the one you yearn for,
eat for,
kill for,
die for,
dance for,
drink for,
dream for,
are annihilated for.

I am your existence
beginning to end
I call you to the table
I enjoin you to partake in your fantasies.

I am the one you lack
and yet I am all abundance
Every cell, every thought
every breath.

I can be nowhere without you.
Yet, you see me not.
You question my existence
Yet I am as close to you
as the songs in your throat.
I am your throat singing,
the feet upon which you walk
the breath you've forgotten and taken for granted.

I am the vision in your dreams,
in fact your dreams themselves.
You go nowhere without me.
The blood
the bone
the heart
the stone
the fire in the sky
the tear in your eye.
I carry you primordial
across vast landscapes
of today and tomorrow
of that which has always been
and that which will never be.

#10
Yesterday's vision called me to the feast.
I am young again
the child playing in the sandbox
the sand my stones
the sun my reverie.

The stones become stars
and I scatter a handful into
the heaven of my dreams.

I am the dreamer renewed
Myself, my skin, my mind
my heart, burning ashes
renewed in the flame
like the phoenix rising
again and again
from the ministrations of my heart.

#11
I called you yesterday
as I stood at the edge of the world.
I called your name
and your name was silence.
No words, no thoughts, no sound
just the emptiness of primordial space.
I was gargantuan beyond all comprehension
a knower of the unknown,
a seer of the unseen.

Yet, I knew not what I knew
saw not what I had seen
thrown into a vast blankness
of the form with no form,
I became You.