Joanne Maria McNally
The Phoenix
Phoenix
Lost in peace
Still moments
Of serene
Aether
Fuelled
To ascend
Cast off ashes
Burn eagerly
Calmly
Against this
Cold world
Its cold people
Shifting coals
Woods
Yielding
To the flame
Now shooting up
Intense in purpose
Heat
Calorific
Taking with it
Aeons
Of deposits
Carbon data
Solidified souls
Vegetation
For the ashes
To return to clay
Awaiting
Some renewal
Stories, lies
Shrivelled
To a cinder
Reduced to an atom
A single ember
Flames furling
Coals
Curling logs
Tinder, wood
Quickening
Combustion:
Will the coal run out
Will the wood run out
And the oil
Before redemption?
Fire
Oblivious
To burning lies
Or truth
It burns
And renews
Burns and renews
Millennia
Prometheus’s gift to us
We’ve used
And abused
Burnt people alive
Annihilated
Forests
Primeval refuge
Flames piercing
To the heart
Layers
Peel apart
Lives tear asunder
Histories crumble
Coals darken
Glows ashen
With the rhythm
Sound
Irregular
Of centuries passing
Furious crackling
Then spatting
Finally
Subsides
To a lulling melody
Of flickering notes
Of
Divine fire
Saving
Sparks
Of lost souls
Igniting gently
The pulse
To self-renewal
Brondesbury Rd, London, March 2008