Fire Child

we found a boy
to make our own
who lacked
and desired
and needed
and burned

a special boy
into whom we infused our particular kind
of healing waters
needed to extinguish
the fires of an infancy
set and fanned by others

"he'll be good for us?"
she asked me, lying in bed
"yes"
"he'll need work?"
(more a statement than not)
"yes"

"he needs us; to help him."
(more a plea than not)
"someone should"
i said to my wife, the giver
and then, taking her hand: "yes. us. he needs us."
(more a prayer than not)

and we fell, blind
opened our lives
to a child whose soul was forged
with a brand
whose needs were greater than the vastness
of the core of the sun

he was special, especially
hard
but lovely
but hard, yes
(beyond the horizons of our imaginings)
hard and lovely together: a sun, our son

and we learned
that naivete
is an unwieldy brand of its own
that can burn
the soul of the giver
and the heart of the given

everyone said this:
"saints"
and everyone said this:
"he's a lucky boy"
and we said to each other:
"i'm tired."

but yet we soldiered on
and marched toward a healing
of the boy
tacking this way and that
bearing down
and falling back (or advancing)

never knowing truly
that there is no healing
but understanding
as much as there is no
handling a vibrant coal
pitched from a fresh fire

and some did say:
"it doesn't always have to be you"
and they said:
"he can go back, he's so hard"
and we said:
"if not us, then who?"

for i'd rather die
having flown a passion-winged life
with its heart-breaks and wind-blown meanderings
than a foot-planted life dictated by the head
with its firm logic
yet cold march to the abyss

we found a boy
to make our own
who lacked
and desired
and needed
and burned

the gravity he made - not of his making, mind you
was greater than that of the others
drawing us toward him on collision
and away from
the softly spinning satellites
who needed our balancing pull as much as he

"did we fail?"
she asked me, on a walk
"yes. probably in a way"
"he hates me"
"no," i said
"he can't hate."

but her question was not
accurate, not the way she meant
because she knew a child's defiance
is not a form of hate
but a form of love-wanting
when words do not form well

and without words
there is a betrayal
and without words
there is a failing
and without words
a child burns from the inside out

and his words form less well so
than others
his tongue a tripping thing
that the mind plays games with
plunging him into despair
and fits of hot effusion

the way density and pressure
push upward and outward the magma
in the earth
and the volcanic eruption
a kind of fit
a crying-out in rage

but he does not hate
not our son, the sun
the child with the heart on fire
whose burn we believed we could
douse with a spritz
made from the waters of the heart

our time has become his time
our focus has zoomed
our peripheral crowded in
by the clouds of frustration and dismay
from a special boy's demands
and for that we cry for the other children

we crossed a bridge somewhere
to this land
blindfolded ourselves
for lack of understanding
exempt from the logic that others
seem so easy to wield

a bridge we cannot return across
for it was burned by the boy
with the fire in his soul
the sun, our son
who lights our path as much as he fires it
our douse turned to a feeble steam

but we wouldn't venture to return, i contend
to turn back on the distance we've come
because while the path we saw before us has been consumed
and the new way a thing ablaze
it is nevertheless a way
and we follow the paths our children forge, regardless the pain