When I was young, my father
and I would sometimes spend
an evening round a campfire.
It was my job to tend
the fire itself, to keep it hot,
in preparation for
Dad’s famous foil dinners.
The trick was to insure
the ideal bed of embers,
coals worthy of their hire.
And once, one summer evening,
I built the perfect fire.
The flames burned low, but steady.
The coals were bright and hot,
just right to start our dinners.
We each picked out a spot
and placed them in the embers.
A stick from off the ground
helped cover them with others.
We listened for the sound,
the sputter and the sizzle,
assuring all was well.
We sat close by our fire,
delighting in the smell.
My dad fell strangely silent,
his eyes fixed on the pile
of fiery, glowing embers.
He stared for quite a while,
then asked me if I’d help him
conduct a simple test
and use the stick to take one coal
and move it from the rest.
The isolated ember,
once red and burning bright,
soon lost its vim and vigor,
its warmth, its glow, its light.
Far from its fellow embers,
it could not give and take,
nor use its store of energy
for its own or other’s sake.
“In Christ’s church, every member
is needed,” Dad explained.
“Each soul has special talents
but needs to be sustained
by many souls together,
where all in concert share
a common cause, a common faith,
a common need for prayer.
If we in pride determine
to go it on our own,
and leave the Father’s kingdom
to face life’s test alone,
our faith, once bright, will waiver;
we lose the Spirit’s light,
like the solitary ember,
cold and silent in the night.”
My father paused a moment,
then taking from my hand
the stick I’d used to move the coal,
he moved it back again.
Though weak and cold and lowly,
the prodigal, returned,
soon gained its former station,
its place, and brightly burned.
Its fellow member embers
were quick to do the right
and kindle in their brother
his former warmth and light.
My father bade me look aside,
then challenged me to say
which of all the embers was
the one who’d lost its way.
To close his allegory,
Dad looked me in the eye
and with a tremble in his voice
began to testify.
“The gospel of repentance
has three related goals:
to save the dead, to preach the truth,
and strengthen all its coals.
Stay steadfast with those embers;
together you can bring
a feast to greet the bridegroom,
a meal fit for our King.
And if someday you’re lead astray
and find yourself alone,
come back; your perfect fire
will bid you welcome home.”

Several years ago during a father and son overnight outing in Logan Canyon at a wonderful place called Camp LoMia, I sat with my son around a dying fire listening to other fathers and their sons bear testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When it came my turn, I thought to use the embers of the fire as an object lesson. The allegory was not original to me—I’d heard it somewhere before—and I suppose it has been told around thousands of campfires. It resurfaced again in my mind one Sunday afternoon after I’d been writing poetry for several months, and I wondered why it had never before been put into verse.

Of all my poems, I completed this one in the least amount of time. It had never happened before, and has never happened since, but I began and ended the first draft in one sitting. It has additional significance to me because, although it wasn’t the first poem I’d ever recited in public, it was the first that I’d admitted to writing. Until then, no one but my immediate family knew that I’d written poetry. I recited it to the members of my ward the Sunday before my daughter Valerie left on her mission. This was back when a missionary’s parents were also traditionally asked to speak in the same sacrament meeting as their departing son or daughter. After my daughter and wife had both spoken, there were only a few minutes remaining before time to close the meeting. I had prepared a ten to fifteen minute talk, but felt impressed to give the poem instead. The Spirit told me that there was someone in the congregation that needed to hear it.