Who among you has fire in his belly?

Who is a hunter, sly in his approach?

Who has not thought once of dragging his heels or of playing it safe?

Who hears ‘shrink back, O soul,’ and laughs in his belly?

Who wakes up in the middle of the night blazing to begin?

Who pushes at steel, pushing with steeliness and stealth?

Who keeps setting the bar higher for himself to outdo and overmatch himself?

Who is disgusted with comfort and complacency, convulsing at the mere whiff of his own laziness?  

Who sees the Flatness of Ordinary Life as vile?

For whom is a life lived with Intensity glorious, necessary, beastial?  

Who wants to be defeated by any challenger willing to show him that he is wrong? 

Who is fed up with the myriad of hesitaters, stallers, bullshitters, and impedimenters?

Whose soul races, thrills at the thought of overcoming Fear?

Who keeps looking for allies, recruiting one by one by one? 

Whose brow connotes earnestness and proper pride? 

Who is put in mind no longer of standing by or of defending ground but of attack? 

Who cannot stand the technocrats as much as the compassion-istas?

Who welcomes calamity? 

Who deigns to risk it all in exchange–no guarantee, friends!–for earthly salvation? 

Whose toughness, carried in speech and action, can be an example for us all? 

*

Is it you? Or you? Possibly you?

I say: Bring on my Fire People!