burns

The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn. Longfellow liked the month of September. Shelley flourished in the hot months. Some poets, like Wordsworth, have gone outdoors to work. Others, like Auden, keep to the curtained room. Schiller needed the smell of rotten apples about him to make a poem. Tennyson and Walter de la Mare had to smoke. Auden drinks lots of tea, Spender coffee; Hart Crane drank alcohol. Pope, Byron, and William Morris were creative late at night. And so it goes.

Such is true joy__ absolute certainty,Its slow lit fuse that burns holesIn the shabby shroud of death forever.

Astrid felt a towering wave of disgust. She was furious with Sam. Furious with Little Pete. Mad at the whole world around her. Sickened by everyone and everything.And mostly, she admitted, sick of herself.So desperately sick of being Astrid the Genius.__ome genius,_ she muttered. The town council, headed by that blond girl, what was her name? Oh right: Astrid. Astrid the Genius. Head of the town council that had let half the town burn to the ground.Down in the basement of town hall Dahra Baidoo handed out scarce ibuprofen and expired Tylenol to kids with burns, like that would pretty much fix anything, as they waited for Lana to go one by one, healing with her touch.Astrid could hear the cries of pain. There were several floors between her and the makeshift hospital. Not enough floors.Edilio staggered in. He was barely recognizable. He was black with soot, dirty, dusty, with ragged scratches and scrapes and clothing hanging in shreds.__ think we got it,_ he said, and lay straight down on the floor.Astrid knelt by his head. __ou have it contained?__ut Edilio was beyond answering. He was unconscious. Done in.Howard appeared next, in only slightly better shape. Some time during the night and morning he__ lost his smirk. He glanced at Edilio, nodded like it made perfect sense, and sank heavily into a chair.__ don__ know what you pay that boy, but it__ not enough,_ Howard said, jerking his chin at Edilio.__e doesn__ do it for pay,_ Astrid said.__eah, well, he__ the reason the whole town didn__ burn. Him and Dekka and Orc and Jack. And Ellen, it was her idea.

My friends call me by my name.""You don't have any friends.""I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong.

And as you see, poor Idris was...persuaded,shall we say? Yes,persuaded to tell me about Tyre and his own route back to Al-Kal'as from there. Faysal, reveal to her his pain." The Captain of the Guard dragged Idris forward. Faysal then ripped away his shirt, and Aminah gasped. Angry scars laced his bare chest, some of the burns still crusted and weeping. Tears tumbled down Aminah's face, but Idris did not raise his head to see them. "Forgive me" he mumered.

The blazing fire burns!

The heartbeat of God burns with longing for the redemption of every individual

Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands?

That fire you see can't last. Still, as it burns, it lights everything.