Fireplace

Shores are not always serene,
Clouds are not ever-peaceful,
Love isn't always held tenderly,
But if they were taken away we would miss them

I look questioningly at the pretty blue ghost,
Wondering why it chose my home for it's host.
I want to know if my blue friend knows me;
I chance a timid question, "Who are you?"

I hear no answer but I see lips do,
I witness "you," before I feel it too.

A mother huddled in a rocking chair before a fireplace, silently watching the wood burn, but bearing her teeth as her mind only beholds a funeral pyre. Images of a mother's daughter; silky blond hair saturated with flame. The pleasant smell of coconuts that frequently followed the young girl seemed to diffuse across the room malevolently. It was all that escaped from the flames, the skin it had clung to was no more than sickly earthen ash.

A mother's throat becomes dry and her lungs arid. Letting the furiously burning wood sprawl out of the fireplace, a mother does not stir from her place at rest. Images of a daughter's mother; recently grayed hair saturated with flame.