The Unchanging Smell of Fire

I take great comfort in the universal smell of fire and flame
Which met my senses, an old friend I could call by name,
As I rode my bike beneath the bridge
Where someone near me must have stood, in their backyard, burning wood

I suppose Genghis Khan also stood in the same holy pause before a campfire
And wondered, perhaps, about his life and its constant strife 
Before brushing away his doubts, like wisps of smoke and spark 
And Caesar and Charlemagne, just like the Christ, they smelled the same scent 
And so it graced their cooks and maids, too, like perfume
The poor and rich alike to smell the flame 

We humans walk out variations in power—given us by chance and place—but our humanity, equally graced, has the same sense to comprehend the mystery, without end,
The same blood and brain to entertain 
That refrain of smoke and flame finds us, whatever our station or our frame 
No wonder the prophets said that all the dread earth (and all of us), would be burned in fire, and born again, then called by God, by name

I have stood in the smoke of fires in Nova Scotia, worlds away
And the yellow-clad forests of Maine
And the canals just west of Oxford, near the shires where fleet foxes 
Reminded me of Beatrix Potter and my childhood

Young years come to me as I smell the scent, 
Days filled with books bound in orange with yellow leaves inside, inviting us to walk, side-by-side, by forest brook 
Or, to sail the world, 
This earth of water and barges and the holy space amidst the darknesses  
All touched, on holy mornings and dark night, by the holy smell of fire
As if the world is its own priest ever sending up incantations for the dead
Always spreading incense, at its feet, that we should stop and say a prayer
Before lifting holy heads