On Our Mettle

Where some viewed resilience, we watched each other 
crumple like paper blackened in the bursting heat. 

We laughed, nervous, as the draft sucked the drift
of us up the flue to flutter, glittering darkly in the clouds 

that in their time would always rain us back to earth. 
And here, beneath the fickle heavens, we are ready

without pretense; sometimes mighty iron,
and at others, fragile steel. It's all mettle of sorts.