i’m pretty sure there’s a metaphor here somewhere

Saturday

I knew I’d be out all evening

so I stopped feeding the fire

sometime around noon.

The empty house was cold

when I got home

late at night

so I went to bed.

(Not to sleep,

so much,

but to bed nonetheless.)

Sunday morning

I shoveled out the stove.

Back in the far corner

Under a thick blanket of gray ash

– many days’ worth of spent fires –

I am surprised by a red glow.

There are coals.

There is heat.

The fire is still alive.

Down deep. Viable.

Just waiting to be stirred.