An Olive Fire - Robert Service

An Olive Fire

An olive fire's a lovely thing;
Somehow it makes me think of Spring
As in my grate it over-spills
With dancing flames like daffodils.
They flirt and frolic, twist and twine,
The brassy fire-irons wink and shine. . . .
Leap gold, you flamelets! Laugh and sing:
An olive fire's a lovely thing.

An olive fire's a household shrine:
A crusty loaf, a jug of wine,
An apple and a chunk of cheese -
Oh I could be content with these.
But if my curse of oil is there,
To fry a fresh-caught fish, I swear
I do not envy any king,
As sitting by my hearth I sing:
An olive fire's a lovely thing.

When old and worn, of life I tire,
I'll sit before an olive fire,
And watch the feather ash like snow
As softly as a rose heart glow;
The tawny roots will loose their hoard
Of sunbeams centuries have stored,
And flames like yellow chicken's cheep,
Till in my heart Peace is so deep:
With hands prayer-clasped I sleep . . . and sleep.

Robert William Service

I like a lot of modern poetry 'save for it's name - to me unrhymed words are prose so call it proemtry or some other word of choice - but those rules like rhyming and meter that set the bar to give a meaning to emotion of thought call forth skills that elude the finest thoughts of the unrhymed verse - so perhaps old and worn I tire

Eagle Chick - after the parent pair flew off it seemed as if the 'chick' like all children ceased to keep a low profile - at least I saw the one

Rainy Day Barred Owl - setting out the dull light of this rainy day

tucked into this middle-aged holly tree waiting out the rain

Paired Eagles - trying to focus and get pics of the eagle that flew away but my reflexes are too slow (and google's blogging photo positioning is fairly crappy but it's free so can't complain too much I guess but this is a multi-billion dollar company you'd think they could do better)

Paired Eagles - one of the eagles flew off, still no sign of any young