‘Fire on Ice’ by Anna J. Arredondo

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Fire on Ice

How shall I serve my anger up to you?
Shall I become like one most distant star
Burning intensely, far from where you are,
Incinerating—infinite degrees
Made a mere twinkling to the earthly view—
Till, when its light has reached you from afar,
By then, my wrath, and I, at last have ceased?

Or shall I bid an ice age fill my soul,
Flash-freezing every feeling in its tracks
(As saber-tooth and mammoth, life-like, whole,
Unmoving now, no more to hunt or flee)
To keep, in detail, all the galling facts
For you to find someday, in ages hence,
Defrost out of their rigid, cold suspense,
And savor each offense most perfectly?

Between these two extremes I find I’m torn,
But any middle ground will never do—
As food at lukewarm temperatures is prone
To breeding germs of deadly consequence,
So of my heart I find the same is true:

If ever I should let my icy scorn
Begin to thaw through careless negligence,
I’d find myself a helpless victim, borne
On swells of misery, self-pity, woe,
Or drowned in sorrow, refugeless, alone;

And if I should allow my burning ire
To cool at all, and let the flames subside,
They would give ground to seeds of bitterness
Which, sown among the ashes deep inside,
And anguish-rooted, watered by distress,
Would grow to something worse than raging fire—
Life-choking vine, despondent listlessness.

So now I’m hovering between extremes,
Am alternately either steam or ice,
And vowing I shall never cede to you;
Though doomed to be forever split in two,
No floods of grief will overwhelm my dreams,
No tepid sighs will dull my fierce desire.
Instead of love and peace it will suffice
My heart to feed itself on ice and fire.

Previously published in The Lyric

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Diagnosis

Alas, I’ve been infected by a virus
More common than the all-too-common cold;
What earth’s first poet, on the first papyrus,
Surely recorded in the times of old;

So harsh a virus, few can e’er endure it;
It spreads and worsens with each listless breath.
No known physician’s yet prevailed to cure it—
In fact, the only sure release is death.

Symptoms include incessant dreamy visions
Of charming smiles, of deep and lovely eyes;
Trouble with speech, irrational decisions,
Short fits of rapture, long despondent sighs.

Through wisdom of the ages we inherit
One remedy: more time spent with the source;
The danger’s much decreased if you can share it,
Give in, and simply let it run its course.

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All Right

When the pace of life gets manic
and overwhelming thoughts emerge,
though I manage not to panic,
still, I find I’m on the verge

of a breakdown or eruption
so I stop to breathe and think,
but each ill-timed interruption
keeps me teetering on the brink

of a meltdown or collapse:
clinging… slipping from the ledge…
plummeting—unless, perhaps,
you should see me on the edge

and you just reach out to steady
me and recognize my plight;
then you’ll see I’m saved already—
because you care, I’ll be all right.

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A Pennsylvania native now residing in Colorado, Anna J. Arredondo is an engineer by education, a home educator by choice, and by preference, a poet.  She also has poems published in Light, The Lyric, and Time of Singing.