The Fire Tree

Jason K. Dy, SJ

You root yourself
beside an old, stone-cold building
ready to lick and burn it
with your fiery flowers
then paint its walls black

and I,
standing from a distance,
afraid to get burned.

Yet from afar
you stand still
like in those summers past
of green leaves unleaving,
of flowers blooming then enflaming
with yellows and vermilions
without bothering
the mockery of usually green trees
of your uncommon guise.

Silently you root yourself
in the earth’s womb
that bears you since
you were a tiny seed
sowed by invisible hands

and embrace yourself—
a burning tree
that neither blazes nor flickers
as the wind passes
nor consumes others near,
nearest you

but you only breathe life
into the old, stone-cold building
and shower life’s hue
into the green grass on your foothold
by the sheer falling of your redness,

and invite me—
still from a distance—
to come nearer.

June 20, 2002
Berchmans Building