Ashes

Cold ashes swirl in the hearth
Animated by a frigid gust
   ghosting through an unlatched door
 from the moon-haunted night without

Feeble, they spiral uselessly in a pantomime
  of living energy 
 as if recalling their burning dance
in an ecstasy of warmth and light

Again they fall
  to gather on the concrete slab
        still—-
                and silent
   as the heart within the grave