Birthday

Birthday poem for my wife on the year both her parents died

The fire flickers

In orange and ruby

Licking the ancient trees

Upon the lowest branches

The flames leap and devour

Scattering dying embers into the breeze

Two of the eldest in the glade

Distant protectors surrender

And in their ashes she shudders and cries

And like the ruddy rolling sun

Will rest behind a veil of night

This phoenix too will rise