07-06-2014, 10:17 PM
FIRE BURNING IN A FIFTY-FIVE GALLON DRUM
Next time you'll notice them on your way to work
or when you drive by that place near the river
where the stockyards used to stand, where everything
is gone now. They'll be leaning over the edge
of the barrel, getting it started--they'll step back
suddenly, and hold out their hands, as though
something fearful had appeared at its center.
Others will be coming over by then, pulling up
handfuls of weeds, bringing sticks and bits of paper,
laying them in gently, offering them to something
still hidden deep down inside the drum.
They will all form a circle, their hands almost
touching, sparks rising through their fingers
their faces bright, their bodies darkened by smoke,
by flashes of ash swirling around them in the wind.
-Jared Carter
Next time you'll notice them on your way to work
or when you drive by that place near the river
where the stockyards used to stand, where everything
is gone now. They'll be leaning over the edge
of the barrel, getting it started--they'll step back
suddenly, and hold out their hands, as though
something fearful had appeared at its center.
Others will be coming over by then, pulling up
handfuls of weeds, bringing sticks and bits of paper,
laying them in gently, offering them to something
still hidden deep down inside the drum.
They will all form a circle, their hands almost
touching, sparks rising through their fingers
their faces bright, their bodies darkened by smoke,
by flashes of ash swirling around them in the wind.
-Jared Carter
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson