Friday, April 11, 2008

There's Fire Tonight

Today's poem is about picking up coal from alongside the railroad tracks. It's about the crackling fire those found lumps of coal brought to us during what we knew then, and recall now, as "hard times."

It was an adventure for a young boy growing up in the care of his grandparents. It was a lesson never forgotten.

But the careful reader will also note that it's a poem about writing. Take a look at the opening: "Words." Hold on to it as you follow the thread of the poem.

I do feel that words are, indeed, like those lumps we thrust into that burlap bag. They have the potential for heat, if we lay them carefully in the stove ... and ignite them with our own inspiration ... fan them into flame.

They will bring us comfort on long winter nights. They will warm our hands ... maybe our hearts, too.

This one was originally published in Southern Humanities Review, and has become the title poem of a manuscript in search of publisher:

THERE'S FIRE TONIGHT

Words, how like

the lumps of coal

Grandma and I found

along the tracks

where hopper cars,

lurching, loping

up the long grade

toward Cobden,

had dropped them,

each a gift

in our dirty hands,

holding promise,

as they were thrust

into the burlap bag,

of shared warmth,

soft, crackling song,

sooty smoke rising,

telling our world

there's fire tonight,

all's well.

© 1997


***

Today's word: lurching

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Helen, for that comment ... for throwing some light on the subject by recalling the Spanish-speaking kids who didn't know what coal was. Growing up in a time and place where coal was our principalsource of heat ... and fuel for the stove in the kitchen ... I hadn't realized that the term "coal" would be puzzling to some in our midst. Now that I think about it, though, coal has become far removed from daily life ... long gone the coal shed out back ... the coal bin in the basement ... the coal-burning furnace ... the stoker. How times have changed!

And thank you, Helen, for that further clarification.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This struck a chord...both with the WORDS and the coal along the tracks.  I had a contact with that with my Spanish speaking kids here.  They didn't know what coal was.  The word means "charcoal"in Spanish, and yes, it burns.  I couldn't explain and had to send a plea out for some coal from Southern Illinois so I could show them.  They had never seen it and didn't believe me that it would burn.  I told them they'd just have to take my word for it.  I asked my friend back home to just go along the railroad tracks and pick some upand send it to me..she knew I was joking, but her son was still a coalminor, so I knew she could send it.

Thanks for the memory, and again, and poem I could see and feel.    Helen

Anonymous said...

Wish I could go back and straighten up the jumbled ending to my comment...I do know better.   Helen

Anonymous said...

Actually, Bob. the word that they use for charcoal is "carbon", but, at least here, with children from several countries it meant charcoal to them, and not coal.  I said that the word coal meant charcoal.  I misstated it.  Anyway, no matter what, they didn't know what coal is.