Burning

Burning

Massimo translating my burning off poem for the Italians

mimed expressively a few twigs added to the fire—ah no.

Bloody great windrows raging but if you have never seen

them you have never seen them so I don’t get into it there

and then—

What I never said I will say now—Matthew would fetch

matches and, with a nod at me over the children’s heads,

the hoe—for the creatures who had taken up residence

in the rows as they seasoned, who would run from the fire

too desperately late—

—once—

Quick!—I shouted at him as the fire kicked in with a sound

like weltschmerz, bored with doing what it knows how to do

so well. What was that?—asked Harvey. A child often asks.

Matthew knee-deep in bracken lashing with the merciful hoe.

That was a rabbit—I said.

It can’t have been a rabbit. It didn’t have any ears. A child

sometimes knows best. Well, I don’t know everything—I said.

Matthew strode back grim-white about the mouth—our look

held far above where our children were—none of this is nice.

Many things are hideous.

And then the necessary fire began to enjoy itself—so primed

to burn there was no smoke—a bluish mist of gas dawdling

upward over the hell-bent, all shades of orange, red and black

engine of a funeral pyre that we had flicked the go button of

because we were afraid of fire.

Jennifer Compton