Gary Snyder:
The heart of a place is the home, and the heart of the home is the
firepit, the hearth. All tentative explorations go outward from there
and it is back to the fireside that elders return. You grow up speaking
a home language, a local vernacular. Your own household may have
some specifics of phrase, of pronunciation, that are different from
the domus, the jia or ie or kum, down the lane. You hear histories
of the people who are your neighbors and tales involving rocks,
streams, mountains, and trees that are all within your sight. The
myths of world-creation tell you how that mountain was created and
how that peninsula came to be there. As you grow bolder you explore
your world outward from the firepit (which is the center of each uni-
verse) in little trips. The childhood landscape is learned on foot, and
a map is inscribed in the mind—trails and pathways and groves—
the mean dog, the cranky old man's house, the pasture with a bull in
it—going out wider and farther. All of us carry within us a picture
of the terrain that was learned roughly between the ages of six and
nine. (It could as easily be an urban neighborhood as some rural
scene.)
Orpheus by Sara Bareilles
Come by the fire, lay down your head
My love, I see you're growing tired
So set the bad day by the bed, and rest a while
Your eyes can close
You don't have to do a thing but listen to me sing
I know you miss the world, the one you knew
The one where everything made sense
Because you didn't know the truth, that's how it works
'Til the bottom drops out and you learn
We're all just hunters seeking solid ground
Don't stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos
Though I know it's blinding, there's a way out
Say out loud
We will not give up on love now
No fear, don't you turn like Orpheus, just stay here
Hold me in the dark, and when the day appears
We'll say
We did not give up on love today
I'll show you good, restore your faith
I'll try and somehow make a meaning of the poison in this place
Convince you love, don't breathe it in
You were written in the stars that we are swimming in
And it has no name, no guarantee
It's just the promise of a day I know that some may never see
But that's enough, if the bottom drops out
I hope my love was someone else's solid ground
Don't stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos
Though I know it's blinding, there's a way out
Say out loud
We will not give up on love now
No fear, don't you turn like Orpheus, just stay here
Hold me in the dark, and when the day appears
We'll say
We did not give up on love today
We'll say
We did not give up on love today