Across the moorland, within the clouds
A hidden figure stands in view
Could you miss it
Or did you choose?

Warmth lies beneath the
boiling surface which pulls
you over into a furnace
And melts you in a warm embrace.

Did you see it coming?
Have you felt the fire?
Or did you hide so it will not burn
until it is dowsed by a sea of waves which churn and churn.

Flowing fire so dark and smooth
And lava which cools
Until brushed away to reveal
A burning core which makes you feel.

A slender flame,
It seems to me, for
People crowd around just to see
And glimpse a light which warms and tames.

But what of the fire itself?
What keeps it burning, what fuels the light?
Does it need more wood
to help it burn just so bright?

It moves gracefully,
Jumping between the trees,
Scorching your branches, grazing your leaves
Until the rough bark peels away and the inner is revealed.

It has burned you softly for so long
Too hot to touch and burning in other fuels
An embarrassment of your tree’s flesh on fire
not knowing you were burning until you went up in flames.

Did you not know what the flame was?
You thought it just a light,
Which was far too bright -
Fiddling whilst Rome burns.

But has more wood already been touched?
Have you not realised another forest has been set alight?
And are you just there to bear the light -
Keep the fire burning bright

Until it leaps upon a tree to the north
Deeper and stronger, who stands above the laws of earth
Tirelessly moving from cold to hot, east to west
Will it run from its own arrest?

And the source - a stone hits stone –
From yonder – a valley you have not seen
A time, a place beyond your realm,
The stone fell, maybe it did not want to burn you think
And fell into coldness, to the west.
Does it mourn for a fire contained in molten rock?

For the forest is vast,
And the trees will outlast
Even the flowers that rise in the spring,
And fade in the fall

And I wonder, if a tree lives for so long,
Is it too soon for fire to catch?
is the fire still burning for another tree
with lighter berries that was taken from me?

Oh jealousy is a tasty fruit which falls from your tree’s branches,
so easy to touch, taste and devour
Will fire burn them, or will you yearn them
Gone away, while you are left
With feet that are forced into the ground
By roots which are powerless and weakening and money-less and reasoning
and fear this:
For when the tree falls and leaves this forest it is
filled with regret, or mourning a half-seen silhouette.