Little Furnace Poem by Brenda Hillman

—Once more the poem woke me up,
the dark poem. I was ready for it;
he was sleeping,

and across the cabin, the small furnace
lit and re-lit itself—the flame a yellow
"tongue" again, the metal benignly
hard again;

and a thousand insects outside called
and made me nothing;
moonlight streamed inside as if it had been . . .

I looked around, I thought of the lower wisdom,
spirit held by matter:
Mary, white as a sand dollar,

and Christ, his sticky halo tilted—
oh, to get behind it!
The world had been created to comprehend itself

as matter: table, the torn
veils of spiders . . . Even consciousness—
missing my love—

was matter, the metal box of a furnace.
As the obligated flame, so burned my life . . .

What is the meaning of this suffering I asked
and the voice—not Christ but between us—
said you are the meaning.

No no, I replied, That
is the shape, what is the meaning.
You are the meaning, it said—