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Bonfires Poem - Lewes Bonfire Celebrations

June 8, 2011 at 17:58 by v

I am on a hill backlit by stars,
I am alone,
I am surrounded by the raw heat
of humanity:

The dancing girls, the dancing girls with
bells in their hair
and mud on their stamping feet;
but I am only watching,

Only standing beneath a singing tree
my hair whipping into my face
as the wind calls my name
calls me into the half sleep

I have no word for.
Only the world blurring into
spinning colors,
the drums going on in my chest

Rocking my body
shaking the world as if it were hollow,
or turning inside out
inside me.

As a child I knew a word for this rising-unfurling-becoming light
as a child I knew the words of true prayer.
Back then I still spent my days beneath trees or more likely
up in their arms dreaming.

But I have since forgotten the words, the particular syllables
that translate transcendence into sound
but I still recognize my own pulse tripping
backwards past any sense of control

So that I am suddenly falling and find myself upon waking
sitting in the dirt on a hill backlit by stars
watching bonfires burn long into the night
watching women with painted bodies dance until dawn.

SHANNON BELL