Fire in Winter

You remind me
Of someone I’ve never met.

I know this ache,
what all is taken
from what I feared
would not last a winter

Here’s wood, stacked, next to
words, leaves of books
I’d been saving
for a longer winter, one

where ground and where stone
heave ice-drowned rivers
stagnant glassed ponds
breathing white sun.

You’ve reminded me
Of someone I’ve met

Yet not, yet felt
in aches in hollows
carved by unseen hands
in slumber of winter.

Here’s sap, leaking, from
cone, limb and cock
pitched resin, gathered
for last winter’s hearth.

You are familiar, kin
of Someone I’ve met

and remember, His
ache, hollowed echo
in ice-rimed caverns
where dreams sleep in winter.

You satyr, wooden
You dryad en-fleshed

I’m covered in pitch
Smelling of winter
and sulphur, this match

and what comes after.