The Task of Fire

Red Earth, hail
You gadfly! Hail!
Where might I
This Surgeon find?

You have pecked
And you have pawed
And I find
Now
An itch
Right here
Between my eyes

I seek this Surgeon
Who can perform
This promised task
A shard removed
And sight made vast

Hail, you! I repeat
Again I ask.

Soft silence
Slow silence
No words
Come
in nameless time
No words
Ascend
in low, low thrum

No words! No rhymes!
I must begin again:

Your speech so slow
Is fine, and I
beg: send forth
your petroforms
like fingers and toes

Brush them
Upon my lips
and tongue
Send out
Your rubble
Your stony feet
like wishful lungs
and speak to me
and give relief

I need your
Incomprehensible heart
To beat
And require
that steady thing
Just one thing steady
I do desire

Sweet amalgam
Of insane, crippling
worth

To it the Princes bend:

Loam, grass
and stones
and sweet
dark earth

It’s you the Kings defend
And the Emperor
Is this:

A question!
An invisible hand!

And what then
Am I? What is it
I am? Who knows not
One side from the next
Nor good from the sad?
Who then am I
With my feet in the air
And my head
In the sod?

I live! I am not dead,
yet I wander
like an old haunter
alone upon the land

How odd

when perhaps instead
I should hunt
And seek

Oh yes
I remember

I hunt
A moment’s peace

The cave
And the Daughter’s grace

I seek
my erstwhile Queen
unmade

all this
I do
In bony shade
my own first mate

for we can never
leave ourselves
behind
I’m afraid

Life
Is a series
of complaints

Until terms are met
And the hours
tamed
So go the hours,
So go the days
And on and on
I say
And on and on
I say

And I do hold
You who hangs
Underfoot
In both my hands
Your fairness
Your grass and hair
Release I now to the gust
The wind blows
And tiredness, so stale goes
You suck, suck, suck it away
Thrice again hail!

Red Earth
Hail!

I beg you
To remain
Spinning
And to speak
And say
Where it is
This Cutter
I seek

And watch this weird dancer
With green fire as my crown
While I strike your stones
To start the burning
I’ll strike two bones
Within a circled round
And start a burning
And shall not
In this ever
Fail

Ever learning
I shall remain
Ever burning

my feet upon
the ground
my feet beyond
this cairn’s bounds

Ahh yes! There is no gathering more refined
Than those better angels in one’s own mind
Green, and blue, and red, and bright
There is nothing so well defined

Nor anything
More precious
Or more confined
Than this: the task of fire

The fire lighted
My gathering surrounds
Latticed upon itself
Geometric within itself
The flesh and bones abound

How they battle
And throng
For the attention
Of the lover
And for the awe
Of the kill
Of that last
Great blow
of will
and ache
combined

Of hits
And snow that falls
My thoughts!

Of buffalo bones
and ancient calls
My songs!

Of each critical moment
Of each flake’s crawl
From heaven
To earth

A descent
A birth

And a fall

I see them not
yet feel their girth
Their heavy weight
Upon Red Earth
Their hearts beating
Circles
And circular
They shake
And stir

They are an offering
Of blood and sweat
A flesh
made church

I see
Red Earth says

I see
And shall
Devour

I see
And shall
ingest

growls Red Earth
this very hour

Read the Lyric from the Beginning