Beauly Fire

I don’t know how to write about fires that warm without hurting
Fires that don’t raze everything to the ground
That heat and blaze and glow
And leave my hair unsinged

I am in the quiet wild
The blue and auburn mountains regard-less the autumn storms
The Beauly Firth should be national heritage
Alone in the wind, I stumble across a fire

Deep in my woods, in my world
A fire that is a calm landscape of its own
My friends ask how it FEELS but I don’t know how to write
About fires that warm without burning

It just is. A landscape of its own
Warming, whether I am cold or not
Glowing, whether I witness or not
This fire’s constance embeds me

I don’t know how to write about auburn
Fires that warm without taking
But I can learn and you can burn
Deep in my woods without consuming my world.

What fires burn you? What are your fires that feed themselves? I’m interested to hear how you interpret this poem. Written today, straight out into the world, with love from Inverness.