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Elemental, My Dear
Slight air and purging fire, the first my thought,
the other my desire. —Shakespeare, “Sonnet 45”
I am of air and fire wrought, though I
am drawn to water like a dowsing rod.
Carousing through thought’s realm, I am a fly,
zigzagging near and far to find a god
who’ll both inspire and accept the need,
intermingling brashly with each other,
to stoke a fire that my heart can feed.
Newness blazes forth from one another,
while water fills the lakes within my soul
and soothes the charring edges of my mind.
What does not dampen ardor, keeps me whole
as fire battles air for equal time.
__These forces make me who I am, and yet—
__I fear sometimes that they are more a threat.
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Alison Jennings is a Seattle-based poet who taught in public schools before returning to poetry. She has also worked as editor, journalist, and accountant. Close to 60 of her poems have been published internationally in numerous journals, including Burningword, Cathexis Northwest Press, Meat for Tea, Mslexia, Poetic Sun, The Raw Art Review, and The Write Launch. View visit her website at https://sites.google.com/view/airandfirepoet/home.
Forthright and intriguing.
Thanks for the read, Alison.
I like the play of forces within us – as elemental as the forces outside us. Also underneath that, do I sense a riff on “that which does not kill us makes us stronger”?
What’s missing is a grounding influence, perhaps, something to bring the flighty, fiery spirit, back down to earth. Then, my dear Watson, the elements will balance. (Is there maybe something earthy about Holmes’ pipe, that settles his mind onto the solutions of his more perplexing problems?)
A fine, thought-provoking poem.