fire invocation for imbolc ritual, 1/30/2016 (improvised, from memory)

before i begin
there is an element of audience participation here
i want you to clap with me
or stomp
or holler
as you see fit
remember
fire loves noise
but when i raise up my hands
please stop

and fire
i know you love poetry
i know poetry is one of your domains
so please have mercy on us
respect that this is poetry
because i know that you also love to surprise
so let’s stick with poetic surprises
and not literal ones

fire
i remember when you took the hardware store near my house when i was eighteen
i remember driving past it just the afternoon before
not even thinking about it
same hardware store that was there
had been there
would always be there
then
over the course of four hours
four hours of noise and chaos
where there had been
tools
a livelihood
there was now
nothing and silence
and i saw that space
as i’d never seen it before

fire
with your noise and chaos
you make nothing and silence
fire
you are raw unfiltered energy
hot blinding light
coming at us from every direction
fire
bring us your power tonight
charge our work with your
fire

and in exchange
because there must be an exchange
there is always an exchange

everyone listening
i want you to think of who you are
everything you are proud of
everything you are ashamed of
everything you stopped noticing years ago
your tools
your livelihood
i want you to think of the things
that are most important to you

and i want you to set them on fire

everything you want but cannot have
everything you have but do not want
burn it

all of your labels
all of your mechanisms
every single agonizing device
everything that makes you who you are
everything that blocks who you could be
burn it

make it nothing
and make it silence
make it silence and nothing

i want you to take
who you were
three minutes ago and
BURN IT.

[beat of silence]

hail and welcome fire.