bonfire

All these beauties abound:
each piece is a work of exquisite complexity
there where they carpet the ground
and the sidewalks are charted in maps of their verity.
Littered like lost love notes spendthrift;
dazing the eye with their gift.

Each day draws to a close:
undone in the gloom of the life undermined by them.
Mercies unshackle my foes -
I'm forced to my knees by the weight of their diadem,
witlessness plundered by wisdom,
sleepwalking memories plumbed.

All these synapses blaze:
abed on a pile of books drifting and bountiful.
Waiting, naked and splayed
for the touch of a match to repel the year's cold counsel -
consumed in the dark by the beautiful
unbound by the quickening thrill.