Dreamfire

why should we pretend to dreams
of lives we fear in life to live
if all our dreams are only those
not fashioned from an inner fire
and hurled across the empty sky
for all the world below to see
to give the world a sense of beauty
and joy beyond some meager measure

of huddled comfort from dying fires
why do we fear the living fire
not just because we might be burned
because there is no place to hide
before the brightness of a flame
there is no dim and cozy corner
where the passive mind may crouch
without an effort or a challenge

living fire is never passive
never burns without demand
only when its darkening embers
furnish but a dying warmth
that echoes the departed flame
and counterfeits departed life
before the honest death of ashes
then only does assertion cease

when only gray lukewarmth remains
within a fading afterglow
like twilight after blazing day
then cozy and domestic souls
demanding only the undemanding
may tiredly at last discard
the pretense that the world demands
that they too yearn for passionate sun

and wallow at ease in drowsy content
and see and think and feel no more
except in pastel twilight fashion
quietly float into the womb
plodding worn familiar paths
circling eternal small backyards
dormant, content to be bounded by nutshells
and vexed by no dreams, bad or good.