“We are learning to make fire.”
—Margaret Atwood
I stacked the ice like window glass.
After all, even if it was cold,
it was clear.
But now we are learning to make fire
and I do not know what will become
of the melt.
You are brutal and ignorant
like any untutored beast.
I am the one scanning the woods
for twigs and leaves.
Still it is your stubborn
stick upon stick
which carries the spark.
Which I feed.
Which changes the night into
a less gruesome thing.
We are learning to make fire
but the problem is now
it must be preserved.
There is no match,
no switch.
Once lit, we must
be steadfast, we must not
let it starve as we sleep.
We are learning to make fire
and it is useful.
I am warmer, I am
chopping bits of meat to boil.
But the forest eye is watching me.
It says: what we make is
not the same as what we create
What the dry months and the sky
brought forth from nothing is
no casual tool, is a
carnivore force
and it will not tell
between the fed and food.