A Poem for Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day

Loved to Death

Let the forest fires burn,

I say.

Cleanse the forest floor.

Reduce the combustible load.

Clean house without

Burning down the house.

Our forests get

Out of equilibrium.

Too much fire prevention.

Decades of accumulated brush, debris,

And thickets of small trees

on the forest floors.

Undergrowth.

Let them burn.

Without fire the lodgepole pine does not reproduce.

Without fire the undergrowth chokes out new seedlings.

Without fire the forest is not regenerated.

Let the fire renew the earth on which it burns.

Fiery love to burn off the impure.

to burn off the unnecessary.

to burn off the false pride.

to burn off the highly edited versions of ourselves.

to burn off the trivial.

to prepare the soil for new growth.

to clear away the undergrowth that chokes out new life.

This is the day we are marked

By what has made it through the burning.

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down.

And then we rise.

Holy God, make your Spirit’s cleansing fire burn within us.

Lift us from the dying embers of our inattention.

Mark us with the sign of your holy passion.

Amen.