FIRE -

(for Lani and Colum)

Sawing the winter’s wood,
Clears the head of words;
My quick breath thinly smokes
As my arm’s muscles ache.

Back bent like a peasant,
The fast saw’s rhythm grunts.
Stale snow, the sawdust falls;
Some logs smell autumn foul.

My face wears an ice skin
That a frosted wind cleans.
Above, a map of greys
Is this day’s frozen sky.

I work to have comfort
(My children ghost my thoughts);
The hardest season scares:
Death’s at this weather’s core.

I imagine wood flame
Like colours of gold screams.
A poem, too, blazes
Out of the mind’s long freeze.

This wood pile must go far;
And, like cold wordy chores
(The store of old fears),
This wood shall make fire.

Published in THE COLD COLD CORNER by Peter Thabit Jones, 1995

FIRE