The Scene of the Fire

At first light the chequered autumn dawn
hesitates, a change, an unexpected void;
the leaves of the lime tree hang like rags,
walls still smoking, a homestead destroyed.

Kids arrive shouting from God knows where
clambering all over, looting, running wild.
But they fall quiet when the son appears,
equips himself with a long forked stick to wield

and poking among the still glowing timbers
fishes out a blackened and battered kettle
that, turning to them, he holds high in the air
as though to prove all existence is brittle

and to bring to their mind the loss of things,
how overnight the everyday, familiar to hand
becomes more fantastic than the death of kings.
And he was else. As if from a distant land.

by Alan Tucker