Servant
speak fire to fire it must have many hands
like a housekeeper with one angry god
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 August 1664.
Dave Bonta
SourceLicence:CC BY-SA 4.0
speak fire to fire it must have many hands
like a housekeeper with one angry god
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 August 1664.
Short as it is, the poem hangs on a strange idea: that fire is a god, and that anyone who speaks to it must become its servant. The opening line, "speak fire to fire," suggests answering flame in its own language, not putting it out or ordering it around.
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