I’ve moved somewhere more rural, though still close enough to Boston that I can continue working there. I’ve already found that my new habitat is better at helping me write poetry, which relieves me because of how many years it’s been since I wrote any poems at all. Unfortunate, however, that this first poem is in response to a terrible disaster in the region.

It shall go with fire & fire,
as the water shall be still,
with the red and gold flowing bloodlike to the sky.
Not one safe home, every earth-vent open,
belching death from the hard hands—
we say hard from heartless,
we say not laborers but stone lords—
and ever there is much to spend
on starting fires,
and none for ending them.

Wood booming, breaking, ashing,
bodies sheltered from the home,
the home sent them out,
not wanting them gone,
for in the flame cries a soft voice
that there had been love.

When we go it shall be so,
with fire & fire,
all regret hoarse from smoke.

Llywelyn Jones