Burn - Dave Wakely
One of the Top 24 submissions in our 2022 Urban Tree Festival writing competition.
Burn
Collars turned against the darkness
We curl in our chairs like snug bar cats,
Watching the falling meteor shower
That glitters in the skies over the allotments.
Parliament survives, but tonight
Guy Fawkes burns spectacular again.
The sparks from your fire-bowl shine
In the silver of your hair, its flaring teenage crimson
Frosted white by more than just years.
I saw the young desire that stoked fresh flames
Through summer bushes on the fringes of the Heath.
That set a match to your pale kindling
And a firestorm in your blood.
Physicians gathered round like
Rainclouds to dampen the inferno,
To pull the phoenix free from the ashes.
And I’ve seen the burnt-stubble earth
Rise afresh, rewilded by time and compassion.
Seen how the silver birch that shades the shed
Is showered in gold confetti every autumn,
Hazy as a smoker’s breath on a grey December morning.
Wedded to winter’s arrival despite what it knows
But waiting to bud afresh next year.
To be divorced again from death
By the gentler heat of spring.
Dave Wakely
Dave Wakely’s writing has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. An organiser for Milton Keynes Literary Festival, he lives in Buckinghamshire.
