#FireitUp
Plated for two
Hints of romance revealed by
the embers’ glow.
A hearth lit earlier
warms the room.
At the kitchen table
intimately set
sits upon steady walnut legs
perfectly level and square,
home-cooking:
gravyboat full
platter of new potatoes
just the right consistency
and temperature
to cap off a good working day.
Henry Dumas (1934-1968) was an American poet involved in the civil rights and Black Power movements shot and killed by a NYC transit cop. This is his poem Fire Bird:
The fire bird come again
Trees blow red
where once green
paddled the summer wing.
The great oak,
hugging my window,
sheds and shakes
with shivering fingers.
Every year the fire bird comes.
It is not his beauty
that I meditate,
rather his awesome message!
“I burn them up now. Someday I will get you.”
