What does the crackling fire say to a modern air that tastes so sweet in the chilly evening? Ground floor, thick Victorian walls, wide wooden boards, a fireplace of pictures, the hearth - heart of the home: on hearing voices, laughing, standing centuries of indecision, counting creaks and opinion, sharing the room with years of reclining, what does the crackling fire say to the neighbouring air?
She is burning words. It is more sentimental than shredding prose. Tinted nostalgic, a-hint-of-hindsight rose-romantic-waste, fossil fuel for a smoggy summer’s fire. Words will always crackle back in lusty protest, but if burning is their last wish, they go, refusing to apologise for the obvious metaphor of hot air and ash, dust to dust. They are just burning words. Perhaps more appropriate than clean lines sliced up, shredded fodder like hay; one line a needle, one a thorn, one, hooked by her beautiful hair.
Instead of answering questions, she collects herbs, coal, cooks, and fetches water. You won’t find her here, except on this summer’s night, cooking soup on a fire of words. Clay chimney pots suck on the cedar wood and summer night pensive smoke rings curl lips.
It is easy to watch already liberated ghosts licking starry ears. Stars hear nothing, but through the sash window they are each home. The bell weight rings every night she lifts the sash. It is tonight she dares to hear the bubble of hot air and ash.
She could see the smoke kissing a chimney with barefaced gestures of truth, so every letter goes up in flames on this one night. The colder the air, the more the tom-tom smoky breath will appear to consume. She knows dark summer fireplaces wait, listening room to room.
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Barnet2006
