Kindling

At the beginning of the holiday 
season, the 12 Days of Christmas 
plates come out of their Williams-
Sonoma box shaped like a rope 
tension drum. The song's a counting 
ritual: it starts with a bird 
in a fruit tree, adds on increments 
the sum of which supposedly equates 
to "true love:" turtledoves and 
domesticated fowl, golden rings, 
a jubilee of animal and human
antics and pastoral labor. It's also 
a counting down to the end of another 
year— how we've moved through space 
and time, how we sense the dark 
slip beyond the hills as we reach 
for a spark to kindle the broken twigs 
in the hearth; how the flame sputters 
as if catching its breath, before growing 
brighter and pouring out of itself.