There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fire-glow.
This fire-glow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.
Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.
Your shoulders, your bruised throat
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!
As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!
This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering
rushes.
I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.
And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is
tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.
Nay, why reproach each other, be unkind,
For there’s no plane on which we two may meet?
Let’s both forgive, forget, for both were blind,
And life is of a day, and time is fleet.
And I am fire, swift to flame and burn,
Melting with elements high overhead,
While you are water in an earthly urn,
All pure, but heavy, and of hue like lead.
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.
The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls,
And the big building bends and twists and groans.
A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls
Burning the flowers. The wind in frenzy moans.
The watchers gaze, held wondering by the fire,
The dwellers cry their sorrow to the crowd,
The flames beyond themselves rise higher, higher,
To lose their glory in the frowning cloud,
Yielding at length the last reluctant breath.
And where life lay asleep broods darkly death.
Nancy Hanks dreams by the fire ;
Dreams, and the logs sputter,
And the yellow tongues climb.
Red lines lick their way in flickers.
Oh, sputter, logs.
Oh, dream, Nancy.
Time now for a beautiful child.
Time now for a tall man to come.
Brother, I am fire
Surging under the ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother —
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you —
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Out of the fire
Came a man sunken
To less than cinders,
A tea-cup of ashes or so.
And I,
The gold in the house,
Writhed into a stiff pool.
Cross the hands over the breast here — so.
Straighten the legs a little more — so.
And call for the wagon to come and take her home.
Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and
brothers.
But all of the others got down and they are safe and
this is the only one of the factory girls who
wasn't lucky in making the jump when the fire
broke.
It is the hand of God and the lack of fire escapes.
I FEEL that your neglect has flayed my soul
And left it a sore, bleeding, pulsing whole!
I feel there is hot fire in pain,
To boil the iron-pot that is my brain!
All my experience, all my thoughts and dreams.
Bubble together, and the mixture steams;
In lovely shapes the bluey vapours rise.
Angels and kindly goddesses console my eyes.
Into the boiling pot I plunge my spoon.
And of hot misery receive my boon.
For from the viscid liquor make I shapes.
Fairies and goblins, little goats and apes.
Many-hued jewels, gem-like flowers.
Bright beads to count kind prayers and happy hours;
Once from the pot a crystal sphere I wrought,
It was a new, clear, and quite splendid thought.
When first I saw him I was chaste and good,
And he, how ruthless, pardoned not the mood.
From one quick look I knew him dear,
And gave the highest tribute of my fear.
So I played woman to his male:
How better could his power prevail!
But his hot sense showed quick surprise
At the slow challenge of my shaded eyes.
In a closed room what fires may burn!
O my cold lover will you not return?
To the high night I fling my prayer:
Master of chariots, drive me in the air!
In summer when my life was cold,
Frozen too weary for desire,
I warmed my heart at your marigold,
As at a fire.
It was the first flower from your new ground,
The first gold largess from the care
And loving, you had planted there,
And in the walks around.
I stole your garden's coin to buy content,
A vision of black earth dug deep for flowers.
Through sunny self-forgetful hours.
With joys, God meant.
In summer when my life was cold,
Frozen too weary for desire,
I warmed my heart at your marigold.
As at a fire.
Happiness, to some, elation;
Is, to others, mere stagnation.
Days of passive somnolence,
At its wildest, indolence.
Hours of empty quietness,
No delight, and no distress.
Happiness to me is wine,
Effervescent, superfine.
Full of tang and fiery pleasure,
Far too hot to leave me leisure
For a single thought beyond it.
Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it
Means to give one's soul to gain
Life's quintessence. Even pain
Pricks to livelier living, then
Wakes the nerves to laugh again,