Slow Fire

Now Earth is slow fire
traveling toward winter’s solstice
in graceful relinquishing
of spring’s singing greens
and summer-wet fruit.

Journeying toward a slower
sparer land of silk-grey branch
and snow-silence
she is our shape-changer,
Old Woman, in her vintage clothes,
burnt scarlet, parchment yellows
burgundy reds, she circles
the blue-violet sky around her
a cloud-swirling shawl of wind.

Autumn fire-bird,
forging a new wingspread
for the longest night,
she is our elegant elder
close to the edge
with leaves and twig
dry as old bone,
she kindles the heart
in her fading
golden stove.

Louisa Loveridge Gallas