Emboldened by doing nothing

right,
I pick up a signal,
ruthless words, un-dead
on radiowaves of hope:

How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren't, after all, made
from that bird which flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work
is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?

it was not this poem
that made its way across a room
of my betters
from the old man in black
courdoroy,
not unlike my friend near me,
but
these words rose up from within,
memory of them fresh
from slow & quiet reading

it was not this poet
that settled me to
nothingness
so well as
the brave, old man
sleeping silently
slumped in a dinner chair
after whiskey & wine
retired
as it were
from this moment
as from the law
but not from a gone wife

no, it is not nothingness
but
gentle peace of stolen sleep,
of not needing Galway’s dying words
but to slip back to time
& rainy Vancouver
for one last burning
kiss
of flame
from the ones loved.