Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LITTLE FIRE IN THE WOODS, by HAYDEN CARRUTH Poet's Biography First Line: Even these stones I placed crudely once Last Line: Good night / good night Subject(s): Fire; Forests; Woods | ||||||||
Even these stones I placed crudely once, black now from many fires, bring me a little knowledge, things I've done, times endured, saying I am this one, this person, as night falls through the trees. I see sand darkening by the edge of an ocean, lights on the rim of a galaxy, but I have not planned my visions. I wish I could. We used birch bark and spruce cones for tinder tonight, in which a spark rambled until it met itself, flaring then and leaping, throwing shadows among the trees. Now punky gray birch smolders. Held in the roots of our great spruce, I hold my son, and the darkness thickens. It isn't the cares of day I think of any longer. True, I got this bruised belly when the machine kicked this afternoon in our troubled potato patch where the earth too cried out for justice, justice! I tauten my muscles; the pain is good and I wish it could be everything. But larger errors are what we think of now that have flared and leapt and thrown these shadows of extinction among our objects. Or is the error necessity, a circle closing? Son, in nature all successions end. How long and slow is chaos. Anywhere I am I see the slow surge of fire -- I, a diffraction, nothing. My son moves closer. "Pop, how does the fire make heat?" He does not see the fire I see, but I know he knows a terror that children have never known before, waiting for him. He knows. Our love is here, this night, these woods, existing; it is now. I think how its being must emanate, like heat in conversion, out beyond the woods to the stars, and how it joins there in the total reckoning. It must. Could anyone resist this longing all the time? Oh, I know what I know, and I cannot unknow it, crying out too for justice, while the fire dwindles and shadows rise and flow. But listen, something is here in the forest. Listen. It is very clear and it whispers a little song: Sweet Bo I know thee thou art ten and knowest now thy father is five times more again and more and most gone out of rhymes sweet Bo for thou dost know me. And thou old spruce above us many are they of comrade and kin who love us so that their loving proveth everything although their way hath not the same compassion as thy nonloving. Sweet Bo good night and hold me hold me close the good firelight is dying the woods are sighing and great is the dark grateful am I for thee sweet Bo good night good night. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our poem explanations - click here!Other Poems of Interest...THE HIDDEN ONES by JOHN HOLLANDER THE PRINCESS WAKES IN THE WOOD by RANDALL JARRELL CHAMBER MUSIC: 20 by JAMES JOYCE ADVICE TO A FOREST by MAXWELL BODENHEIM A SOUTH CAROLINA FOREST by AMY LOWELL JOY IN THE WOODS by CLAUDE MCKAY IN BLACKWATER WOODS by MARY OLIVER THE PLACE I WANT TO GET BACK TO by MARY OLIVER I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH A REAL HARD TIME BEFORE' by HAYDEN CARRUTH |
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