first fire

Traces of the Molten State from Etsuko Ichikawa on Vimeo.

first fire

no life before fire
no memory before stone lay
cooling
slowly cooling.

life exploding
in the mouth of nothing
to became the ultimate surprise.
flying until these stone

cold memories
join others in some new fire
welling up, over
another edge to run
down mountains again
new memories - joining memory

a thousand words for heat
a thousand for the nuance of cold
and between, another thousand
for each discrete
degree of pressure

one for the tug
of an orbiting moon, one
for this shoulder, ploughed hard
in the bed of a glacial stream -
one for your breast and this blanket
between us

and this last word
for heat - swollen,
hard in a new fire I melt,
welling up
over another edge -running
down mountains again.


© David L. Potter

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I wrote this poem in 2002 during a mentorship that disappointed several people, myself especially. The mentor is/was an internationally recognized, award winning poet well respected in the literary and academic communities, but not the mentor I would have chosen.

After being informed that I had been accepted in the program I rushed to the library and borrowed a copy of everything they had by my new mentor. I literally had nightmares - something that is so rare I can remember only one other in the years since 2002. I really didn't want to write the kind of poetry my mentor did, and I was afraid....

My mentor was fascinated by new metaphors and expanding the language... I was/am more interested in crystalizing the emotion I find and experience in the world around me.

After a while it was clear that my hope (expressed clearly in my program application) that we might work with a body of my work that was not ready for submission was not possible. "I'm not a poem mechanic."

"Write a poem about stone."

After I presented this poem, the mentorship was declared a "breast-free zone" ;-) ...and shortly after we mutually and quietly allowed it to dissolve.

I was discussing my mentor's work with good friends the other day. The delight is that this world is large enough for all of us...

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I borrowed this video from another friend's blog, not only do I have a fascination about glass and the art of the glass blower, it seems to match this poem much better than a volcano lava flow could. (Thanks to Wenda for finding it...!)

d.