You tell your wife of the oddness of the boy
Frenetic spirits are seen cavorting near stone oaks
But they will not incline your son, you conjure
Sand in immense heaps and on fire, and black smoke
Your fathers before and since have built up this altar
Anger and fear were cajoled to grow large as trees
Smolder unseen in roots beneath compacted ground

The altar at which you did not worship, but lit in me
Obey or perish, in a desert of hopelessness
It consumed everything, ate the bones of the air
Fuel was infinite, lush, volatile and aching for the match
How you broke the green branches, again and again
To force them into the pit, stabbing them through themselves

Yes, your red flames arced wide and blossomed the whole night
Did you notice
White sparks soaring upward in their thousands,
Free, escaped, and gone,
Forever to kindle elsewhere a completely different fire.