Calcination

Fire, that immortal blacksmith,
forever forging its shimmering blades.
They rise from the darkness, cutting and separating,
destroying an impurified husk
to leave just what will be essential.

At first it turns black.
Black like the soil beneath our feet
where everything we know came from.
Black like the hidden corners of my mouth
where the words i meant to say never moved.

But this too burns and turns to ashen white
Its structure surrendered,
a mound of remnants, homogenous and unpatterned,
a gentle chaos with no identity,
dead and stirring with the wind

To Kip, undeterred

It's bitter cold out here before the sunrise.
The power lines are humming with the lake a distant 40 yards off,
and we're here, sitting in your car at 5am,
wishing the world would stop spinning.

"it's getting cold," you say, and I grasp your hand. 

The diesel smell has dissipated, but I still smell your hair in this stillness.

"Do you know the reason I call us by our celestial names?" I ask.

Years ago, you told me a story about how vast and distant everything is in space

How things move with a great clock marking the time.
And as it ticks, we all dance to its beat.

You and I were always off time, eclipsing and countering each other.
We never stopped orbiting, and we still inch closer.

Someday we will have to pick:
explode from a slingshot or conjoin into one.

Hold tight to my gravity, and i'll hold to yours. 

And let's see where we land.