still smouldering
with interred lightning
this tempered wilderness
life drawings of fire
dance in alphabet
hills make charcoal
smudge the outlines
saltpetre heathen tongues
peel back these veins
as gut for flamenco
in the valleys now
courts the dragon
eludes the celibate dawn
will your heart match
the wing flap
seek without shame
and make fertile
this ear drum’s beat
cast lots along the razorback
to such unending desire
this true name
can only be spoken
by counting years aloud
into any inferno
I will call them out
wanting to hear
all you have again
in a quickened reprise
First published North of Oxford August 2017. North of Oxford Most Read Poem 2017.
‘Unstill Mosaics – The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing’ 2019.
Photo: David Safier courtesy Field Naturalists Club of Victoria.
James Walton Poetry 