Village folk round here have a saying
As old as Hephaestus:
When the tongues
Of fire in the hearth
Hiss as if blown
By some invisible bellows,
Someone’s talking about you—
If you ask me, that’s reason enough
We should all watch
Our tongues too.
Psst, Vassilis -- over here in the haunted house the fire in the hearth was forever silenced when the ancient chimney collapsed after one too many quakes on the fault beneath us.
ReplyDeleteSo something else must be at fault for all these rumours here of the excellence of our friend Vassilis and his poems.
(Whispers of the wind soughing in the redwood branches on a cold night might however be mistaken for the poetic speech of tongues of fire whenever one of your poems is alight in the mind, as at this moment.)
Tom,
ReplyDeleteAfter a harrowing summer of over 1000 quakes ranging from 2 to 4.5 Richter, Upper Messenias is now somewhat more peaceful but everybody is thinking “When will the Big Man really shock it to us?” After the big one, what use will chimneys be anymore—not to mention poets who sit in front of fireplaces waiting for inspiration to strike!
As always, thanks for your kind words.
One of Blake’s besooted chimney sweepers