What bright Christenings
We bring into swirling Conflagrations—²
Being a poet means letting yourself Catch Fire!³
O delicate walker—babbler, dialectician Fire—⁴
Fire Baptizes
Our Awakening!⁵
Hectic & Flexible—
Flames are Ideal new Bodies for us—⁶
Dress our souls in Eternal Garments of flame!⁷
Animals arrive, interlaced, and gods interlaced—
And humans Flame-Woven—⁸
Fire poets Burn at absolute zero.⁹
A Regenerating fire hath turned
The dense black element into a
Crystal pathway for the Sun—¹⁰
¹ Isabelle Baafi, Bruckins Braggadocio
² Sandra Simmonds, Let’s Make the Water Turn Black
³ Kara Jackson, Teenagers Are Not Exempt from Poetry
⁴ Louis MacNeice, Brother Fire
⁵ Mai Sayigh tr. L. Jayyusi & Nye, From Beirut Under Siege
⁶ Rae Armantrout, Transactions
⁷ Jidi Majia tr. Denis Mair, A Nuosu Speaks of Fire
⁸ Muriel Rukeyser, Ajanta
⁹ Gary Snyder, As for Poets
¹⁰ George Eliot, Middlemarch