burnings
Burnings
I watched my city burn, my Illium.
My baby in my arms, our
scant possessions at our feet.
No way to know if my man were alive or dying,
dead,
Or what the Fates held for us, where our threads wound.
As I watched the fires, waking, I dreamt a woman watching flames
In the dream, I did not know if she were me.
She gathered children close as she too watched a city burn.
Her face changed then, became other faces, different women
Clutching children, husbands, parents, household gods
Each one had flames reflecting in her eyes.
Then in the fire's roar I heard strange syllables,
A litany of names I did not recognize:
Tianjin and Atlanta, Rome, Dresden, Sarajevo,
Washington and London ... the list went for long minutes.
Then I heard my man calling, and I ran to him,
His hair held sparks and his skin was burned
I thanked the gods for sparing our lives,
The women and their strange-named cities
I left to think of on some other day.
Presumably, this was inspired by listening to the beginning of the Odyssey.
There's a regular entry
here.
Posted by dichroic at October 10, 2002 12:42 PM