When they emerged, the flames,

            As I was sure they would

            From their drought-loosened stranglehold,

            It was changing light I sought

            Smoke reached us across the valley

            And I gazed at the ridge

            Where it sliced along the belly of the sky,

            Where the colours I had yearned to discover

            Spilled and rioted

            At last the complexity of trees gave way

            And from this silencing 

            A darker clearer line,

            The bold stroke of a brush,

            The edge of a wall about to buckle

            At home I assembled the pigments

            But nothing much came,

            Eager and exultant as I was,

            Sure of a virgin eye,

            Because walls were much on my mind

            The familiar ones at least,

            Of riches, faith and love, 

            The common barricades 

            Against that blackest certain fire

            It seems so useless now, the work of

            Capture, mimicry, approximation –

            So obsolete

            And even your arms,

            Forgive my falling out of them

            And into a greater art