All Winter long
when the cold or the dog
demanded it
we would burn brown
grocery bags
beneath our brick mantel
to kindle the fire and
keep us cozy.
We’d watch
in dumb wonder
as green flames
leapt off paper
when the inked logos
of Stop & Shop or
Big Y ignited
like uranium glass
under black light.
Why this velvet fire?
Look through
a window:
It is April
and green
flames have spread outside
to the silver maple,
to the golden grass, and
to the fern that unfurls
like a feathered tongue
to lick the garden path.
Each year
it spreads itself
from our hearth that emerald inferno
that catches to every living being.
Those fires we kept,
blossoming.
