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Feeding the Fire

Some hard, half-eaten logs
lie drifting in ash :
black in the flocculent
smother of grey.
Just a puttering flame,
the occasional spat of cinder.
 
Holding a sheet of the Times
up against it, though,
the lung of paper sucked in
and suddenly lit from behind :
a roaring diorama ;
the long throats of fire, feasting,
 
hungry for news. The page is read,
then reddened, then consumed.

—

Robin Robertson, “Feeding the Fire,” in A Painted Field (1997; 1999) : 42
viewable (maybe) but not borrowable via archive.org : link
 

Robin Robertson (1955-), poet, editor; born in Scotland, lives in London
wikipedia : link
poetry foundation : link
 

15 July 2026