Pure White Light
June 4 2009


We burned the chairs first,
splintered, kindling
kiln-dried wood.
The table, next,
fed, leaf-by-leaf
into the stove.
And beds stripped bare
screws, worked loose;
sagging mattress
stacked against the wall.
We pried-up floorboards
crow-barred 2-by-4’s,
exposing joists, and gaping holes.
But still, the cold.

You’d think books would be easy.
But they smoulder, blacken, smoke
douse the stove.
So we burn them page by page.
The heat
has us in its trance,
feeding it, hand after hand.

Floor to ceiling
shelves stripped clean.
They stand against the walls
like skeletons,
ribs sagging
spindly spines.
They too will burn
eventually
— the marrow bone after the meat.

The unmemorized lines
are gone.
But the work of words goes on —
a flare of pure white light,
illuminating us
one last time.