Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BURNING BUSH, by MARIAN STORM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BURNING BUSH, by                    
First Line: If the afternoon gathers in a honey tide
Last Line: A memory triumphant; her bush burns.
Subject(s): Miracles


If the afternoon gathers in a honey tide,
Flooding up the valley till it breasts the slope
Under the dark laurels where the old house died,
And the sun's gold fingers grope,
What will they find there now? The rim of the leaf-choked cistern,
The earth cellar where the weasels hide,
But never the hearth where the firelight played when the mice were scampering,
Nor the lamp that made a pool of life on the midnight mountainside.
The clearing is swallowed up; given again to the forest.
Over that phantom doorstep in winter and spring go ferns,
But the "burning bush" of her hopeful planting blazes yet when the frost comes.
Defiant, red as the sunset,
The thornbush burns.
The only living thing to tell of the house the dust holds,
Like an immortal passion its fire returns.
The burning bush on the mountain, grotesque out of the laurel,
Rekindled by grave November, a beacon the hunter learns;
A waning flame that flickers from scarlet to coral,
A memory triumphant; her bush burns.





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