Fire
(Definately to be read aloud!)
"What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.
We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way."
Enjoy the between…
With thanks to Marge for gift and the reading.
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November 28th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
I re-read this poem today when taking a break from work, a forced reflection break.
I am suddenly thinking that this may be part of the magic dialogue that occurs sitting around a camp fire in the circle.
There is the circle, and their is a visual representation of what Martin Buber terms ‘the sphere of the between’: heat waves, fire, sparks and also, the necessary space that lives and breathes between.