Firebed

Firebed, August 2023

I

You were never happier, you said, than this:

a summer’s evening, your forge still hot from other work.

You pulled a bar of iron from the coals, so yellow as to be white,

to pound one more shoe for your good horse Porter.

I’d herded out the children, the boy

with his puppy, the girl on my lap,

to watch you work and wait for evening.

And the sun painted the sky above the pines red-orange,

a projection of the firebed in the forge.

You made a dragon from a scrap of iron,

thrust the tongs into water, and held it out for our son,

who jumped up roaring flame like his dragon,

exactly as you’d pictured,

right down to the puppy in hot pursuit,

and you laughed from the heart of your belly.

You crafted a tiny horseshoe,

small as our daughter’s hand.

“For my cowgirl,” you said, and she rose to show her brother,

their heads tipped together,

and we shared a smile of joy, and maybe pride.

For me you pounded out a heart as the sky turned the deep blue of gloaming,

the first star warming up for a night song

of light, and you shed your apron,

raised both hands and pronounced: “This is love!”

                                    II

There was fire before, in the first years,

and sometimes a firey clash of wills.

“I’d thought you’d run the business, with those brains.”

“Your business,” I’d said and went back to school.

                                    III

On a day in August, we forded the river horseback,

a blanket bundled behind your saddle,

and up to a hill bathed in hot sun,

you, me, and the Holy Spirit…

and one February, too,

the baby by the hearth in his hamper,

and you said, “My heart hurts, it’s so full,”

and we made a sun and a moon,

two planets of possibility,

the best of both of us.

                                    IV

“And that should have done it,” you said:

you me,

daughter son,

sun moon,

hot cool,

fire ice

gentle strong.

You were used to being strong,

sure that, with heat and your strength,

you could bend us,

woman man,

house home,

earth wind,

but the fire in me melted the casings,

and my cravings seeped like lava.

The children, too, were their own people and proud.

The photograph of the life you had carefully forged,

taped still to the fridge,

yellowed by the sun, the moon, and me,

and we all grew in that light,

even you, and you knew it.

                                    V

An MRI is a static picture. The “I” is for “image,”

the x-ray of your brain taped up

beside a decade of family photos,

and, in my imagination, I thrust your white-hot poker

into your half-shaven head

to blast from the base of your skull

the tumor they called

glioblastoma.

In MR-spectroscopy, the image pulses

with color that indicates movement and heat.

“See,” the doc points to the screen, “the colors are live:

blue, green, yellow, red-orange: the hotter, the faster the growth.”

The glow on his screen, your forge’s fed firebed.

                                    VI

You relied on heat to manipulate metal into shape,

to pound against an anvil the course of your fate.

Radiation, they said, a blast of heat and force

of radon just might fool that fate of yours,

so your truck traveled weekly, and you slept in the city,

chemo on weekends when you came back home.

In a bed by a window that faced the setting sun,

you gazed instead at the bright head of the moon

and the dazzling hand-scattered stars,

full-knowing you would rise to join them soon.

“Am I weak not to fight more?” you asked with laser gaze,

but you were the cool model of grace, and I said so.

                                    VII

We gathered around you, the hearth behind us,

the boy with another pup, the girl with a guitar.

We watched the sun slip below the ridge and

sang for a moment with the harmony of stars.

Then the clouds veiled the field of our vision,

and, consumed by a final flame, we were left with only ashes.

                                    VIII

On a spring day that promised record heat,

the moist soil steamed, the loamy air rich as blood,

the boy with his bounding dog cast wildflower seeds

and fireweed dreams, and, on horseback, the girl loped

through the field singing, sowing stars and even maybe even love.

What eventually rose—you know this—is what you hoped:

A field of color-- blue, green, yellow, red-orange, and

we frequently laugh from the hearts of our bellies.

We are happy as we work and wait for evening.