Amid the wintry gray of ashes slumber red and glowing embers A breeze, a twig, again they flare Feed them an once more have flame Bask in the warmth of fire's glow Alight `neath the shelter of hovering smoke As from the rising plume of smoke Settles soot like blackened ashes Still the dancing fire does glow And within the smoldering embers Give birth to ever-renewing flame That show fresh light with every flare Red and gold play in each flare Beneath the canopy of smoke The shimmering light of flame As below the redder embers Keep their softer deeper glow And by its light the night shall glow Brighter still with every flame That embraces hidden embers And gusts clouds of darkening smoke. And beneath, the glowing embers, The legacy of each new flame And so we sit to gaze at flame Lighting our faces with its glow And poke our sticks into the ashes To be rewarded by a flare Belching tendrils of thickened smoke And rolling lumps of sullen embers And once again it falls to embers To be the seed of rising flame And the final wisps of smoke Above their fading, dying glow- No more the gaudy light of flare Dancing above the quiet ashes. And while the patient embers sleep in a blanketing crimson glow Once more the flame may yet flare And new smoke rise again from ashes.