When Are We Going To Get There

When Are We Going To Get There ?

Friends circle around the camp fire :

Lengths of downed trees flame within
The blackened iron fire ring where
Aged wood burns, wafting smoke 
To chimney up through the high
Canopy of tall pines .

Burning wood's cave ageless aroma
Escapes flames of carbon as hues 
Of white and blue, also shades
Of orange and red, that join crackling ,
Popping gases released finally from
Spent embers to seek again the 
Chemistry of union .

Before molecules, pre- atom, both ash and gas 
Were big banged into primordial birth
As quarks - positive and negative - then
Chaining over and over, again and again ,
Linking for how many times, maybe into ,
Even my own DNA .

A child sees a journey as a destination, as an ending,
" When are we going to get there ? "

But force and matter, not knowing beginning 
Or able to see an end, journey to connect 
Into granite, or possibly, into you and either by
Magma or by fire, they are released as
Ooze or as ash to again travel .

Stalking silently within me, multiplying 
And dividing, oblivious to the demands
For long life and old age, stealth cells , 
The aggressive minority demanding their
Pound of flesh cheat in line, as they become
The new order .

Downed trees or me makes no difference
To fire's finality of form .

I am, as is a child, as is ash to " there",
Release is to my continued journey .

Giving up their colors embers cool and
Die away, on the breeze ash drifts ,
There into darkness, depart friends .

   Ronald C. Downie