Kindle me

Once on fire — now I’m cold
I burned too long and faded out —
a hearth of ash and longing.

Come kindle me with kisses —
kindly wrap your warmth around my ice
melt me, turning cinder into ember.
Come light my fire

Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace (Worn Out) by Vincent van Gogh

Today De hosts the Quadrille at dVerse. The word is fire. For those of you have never written a Quadrille before, it’s a poem using exactly 44 words including the word of the prompt (and the words is fire). Join us, we open at 3 PM EST, which means that if you are in Europe it will be one hour earlier this week since Americas has moved to Daylight Savings Time.


March 12, 2018

26 responses to “Kindle me

  1. I like the drawing you included with your poem. I wonder if it was from Van Gogh’s early days of religious fervor, working with the coal miners in Belgium (I think it was Belgium.) How sadly ironic that these hard-working miners would be the ones obtaining the fuel for fire, yet would be so worn-down and far from fiery, as you describe the condition in your poem.

  2. the contrasts underscore the longing to be re-kindled – I liked especially ‘cinder into ember’

  3. Oops, we’ve done it again, on a hearth/Vincent wavelength this time, Bjorn! I love the hard alliteration of ‘Come kindle me with kisses’ and the line: ‘kindly wrap your warmth around my ice’.

  4. I like the turn cinder to ember…although when I see Kindle I think of my.Kindle Fire. I think of peasants sitting by the fire, how small those fires often were and cold many times the peasants were.

    ..

  5. I so like your use of kindle/rekindle. (That could be a good quadrille word!) I just commented on Kim’s Van Gogh poem and how fiery his passion was–and agree that it was affected by his failures in relationship and with the miners. This is one of the poems I will go back and read again before moving on.

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