Hot coals in whimsical patterns of beauty

There was a peep from Margaret and then a sigh and then it was all over. Bessy cocked an ear and looked like there had been a meltdown on the far end of a never-ending poker, a poker that might one day have shifted red hot coals in patterns that in their random re-allocations pronounced beautiful dreams that might have been. I read those coals and I realised the dreams would never be and yet, there remains with me Margaret and Bessy and the fleeting whimsicals that pass through my head every now and then.