Kindling

These days he's somewhat spent; yet he remembers
himself a boy before a hearth, fanning kindling into
blazing sinuous streamers, watching wide eyed
as they feverishly dance up the stack headed straight
for the winking eye of the moon.

Now left to peer into that same aged hearth, he reaches
in to swipe at sooty scattered dreams, mere imprints
scorched upon cinder walls by familiar flames, once
wild as they danced to their independent freedom.
Yet with billow in hand, he readies himself to fan that one
unaccounted flame, just in case it finds the reason,
the heart, to travel the long way back to find him.

Senryu

radicalism
shimmy on down to the ground
let it all hang out