The Burnt Child Poem by William Stanley Merwin

The Burnt Child

Rating: 2.9


Matches among other things that were not allowed
never would be
lying high in a cool blue box
that opened in other hands and there they all were
bodies clean and smooth blue heads white crowns
white sandpaper on the sides of the box scoring
fire after fire gone before

I could hear the scratch and flare
when they were over
and catch the smell of the striking
I knew what the match would feel like
lighting
when I was very young

a fire engine came and parked
in the shadow of the big poplar tree
of Fourth Street one night
keeping its engine running
pumping oxygen to the old woman
in the basement
when she died the red lights went on burning

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Dr Antony Theodore 09 December 2020

pumping oxygen to the old woman in the basement when she died the red lights went on burning a touching scene. tony

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David Webster 23 October 2019

The title is interesting. Are we to assume that the child lit the fire which caused the death of the old woman? And are the red lights still burning in the child, s head the compulsion to carry on starting fires?

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Brandi Knecht 19 December 2006

i love this poem its kind of sad though

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William Stanley Merwin

William Stanley Merwin

New York / United States
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