Fragrant as fresh cut cedar
in early morning cold
and as waking
with the welcoming spread of your
love,
you baffled yourself with the scents of your
wilderness,
dryad concealed behind civilized
shyness.
You cling to embarrassment like roots
in snowpack-buried soil.
Willfully deceived against your own feral
womanliness,
you flush as flame
when passion flares;
you are a
virgin to the knowledge
that love and shame were never opposed,
but complement in devout trust
like a flame-hearted hearth
redolent of cedar
and made of cold stones
hewn from the icy river.
Fret not for the purple heartwood
as the sacred fire burns between us.
My love, let us
commune in the ashen aftermath,
hot embers alighting upon Winter’s winds.
Fire Ritual (For Falon)
Published
