After the fire

During the fire,
I thought
I lost
everything;
my home,
myself,
my body,
my world.

Worst –
I thought
it was
my finger
that struck
the match.

How then
is my home
upright,
unsinged,
un-devastated?

How then
do I find
in my hands
dear little shoots
unearthed
by the fire?

How then
do I find myself
bearing
a winter’s worth
of burn-scars,
thick
and white
and roped,
but
how
do
these scars
breathe and beat with stars,
and sing
of a soldier’s courage?

I am
come home
to myself,
and I may
never know
if I struck
the match,
and I may
never know
the reason
the fire
resisted
every dousing burst
of water –

but
I survived,
and I grew,
and I came back
more.