To the First Fire

[alonso ramoran]

Closer if you can, come in closer.
Our connection, this space
I communicate across, is as strong
as your acceptance
of any part of your position
in the arc that we all follow,
being that you once thought yourself
estranged from your own kind.

In this vein, my presence was immutable:
I'm still with you here,
listening to you grasp
for phantom conduits to channel
the grief of all things
transient and fragile, as if attempting
to call in some alien other
from the dark. Though not alien,

understand these words won’t reach you
as the words you are perceiving,
as your words never reached me
verbatim. Ages distort tongues.
Only warmth survives translation.
You and I can sit in silence
and it would be enough
to watch the embers ebb into the cold night,
wherever you might be,
wherever there is fire.