Fire Flower

I've just heard on Radio 4 that Wilko Johnson (from 70s band Dr Feelgood) is dying of pancreatic cancer, he has nine months to live, twelve if he accepts treatment which he doesn't.  Instead he is going on a farewell tour.  He describes how knowing he is dying has shaken him up into feeling alive, he says "...just walking down the street you really feel alive, you see every little thing and feel every cold breeze against your face, every brick in the road, there it is."

As young womanhood draws to an end, I become aware of the intensity of life within life, and of what went before and what is to come...here are my thoughts in the secret night, dedicated to women of a certain age (and before, and beyond).

Fire Flower

Forty-nine, time decreed

Fire awakened

From its bulb deep in the heart of life

Grew a thick trunk in mine

Flowered in my face.

Red petals cup my chin

Red petals touch my cheek

Heat rolls and unrolls

In the secret night

In the sage day

In the secret night I lie

In the glorious bright bright

Of life and life within life

Tears of marvel

Tears of gratitude

Run helpless into the fire

And sizzle

In the sage day I stand

At the stake

As the blood boils

And it burns away;

Attention wanted and unwanted

The hunt and the hunted

The role enforced and fallen upon

The giving and the taken

The beauty

The duty and the rage

The water gives up its hold and its bonds

Is released into the sky

In the sage day I stand

At the stake

Look into my eyes

I stare out pure and sharp

Here I am

All that is behind this life of woman

All that went before

And will continue to be

(now there's a curious thing, a bug in the system has made AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE double sized on my 'view'...)