flame

In daylight and up close, he was merciless, all smiles and freckles, the brightest, boldest flame a moth could wish for.

A distant love that waits to be together, is by far the most difficult relationship. It's like lighting a candle, and adoring the long flame and robust glow. Until time sets in like wax, overflowing deeper and deeper into the wick, leaving a sparse flame struggling to live. This is where most distant relationships fade, with the wax smothering the flame. This kind of relationship takes patience, hope, unconditional love, trust and strength, all centered around God. If the flame endures to the end, and the two come together, only then will it feel as if the candle was tipped and all the wax came pouring out, when the flame is revived, long and glowing again.

from the Prize winning poem - UNBORN in the book Terra Affirmative."Under the surface / her body is curled, / seed of the one race, / shell of the world. // She is thw waterfall, / she is the womb, / she is the bubble, /she is the tomb. // Her hair flows upward, / blood red of the birth. / Her arms are folded / deep into the earth. // She is the fern, / she is the bark, / she is the lantern, / she is the dark. // Her eyes burn the flame / of the old and the young. / Her breath is the name / of each branch of each lung. // She is the ingredient. / She is the blend. / She is the beginning. / She is the end.

Love, bemysticalas the flickering blue flameof nightas the fully-awokenmoonbeneath cobwebsof passing cloudsamidst chantinghigh-tidesfuzzy,as my blanketbig enough to illuminate a hundredthousand billion galaxiesand just small enough to fitinto my embrace.

Stars ink your fingerswith a lexicon of flameblazing rare knowledge.

Cigarette kisses the flame. But the mouth kisses the woman. (Cigarette embrasse la flamme. - Mais la bouche embrasse la femme.)

It did occur to him that perhaps he__ gone to the wrong Academy _ the guys in the Space Fleet always had more interesting stories to tell at the spaceport bars. You know, tales about the dude who got vaporized in a plasma accident in the engineering section, or the fella who got turned into a blob of weird space jelly by some alien virus _ or the time someone flew a starship into an astor-field at warp four by mistake (they were still trying to find the black box on that one). The Imperial Space Fleet__ recruiting office sure didn__ go around advertising __oin up, see the universe, meet interesting aliens and die screaming_, but it was known there were risks involved. It was part of the job after all, and yet somehow, they still got recruits signing up in droves. Yes, indeedy _ the stories were far more interesting than his _ took a load of ore to Gorda, took a load of mining equipment back to Tordrazil. Took a load of Florpavian Flame-birds to a zoo on Deanna, took a load of machinery to Salus. Picked up and dropped off a few passengers on the way. Still, Florpavian Flame-birds were a risky cargo_ and damned tricky to transport _ which is probably the only reason he__ had any entertainment at all on the last trip.

My love, my love, is a flame in the dark covered in glass. So glowingly beautiful to others on the outside, while slowly suffocating inside.

Love, they said, burns youand builds you.But with you, there__ no ash.Just light.

Mislaid flame of tender emotionsRekindled.Together we live to the point of tears,I wouldn__ want it any other way.

In all the flames of fire fume__ left the traceInto the bluest sea the sky is drownedThe miracles of life can you embraceFrom the poem 'Can You Embrace?