Mr Brontë’s Fear Of Fire
Maybe Mr Brontë’s fear of fire came earlier,
Before TB, night sweats, fever, blood-tinged sputum
Took his wife, entire kin, five daughters and a son,
Till near blind, like Rochester, and alone
He circled the table in the parlour: a lost prayer.
Perhaps Patrick Brontë could see himself like this:
Standing on the edge of a precipice,
Where a man loses everything he loves
And calls that fire, combustible destroyer, oxidizer,
No air for breath, chronic cough, a fight for air.
Maybe Mr Brontë had no word for it but fire
So – a man should fear it, the thing that runs ahead,
Consuming everything he loves, until it dawns too late:
There is no fine curtain to draw in any stone room
Between the living and the dead.