Fire Stones

Another archaeology poem.

The stones were- I think- quartzite and someone had brought them into class to demonstrate how people in the Stone Age might have started a fire. 

                                    FIRE STONES

 

                                    You wrap the quartzy stones in wool,

                                    Knock 'em together; they'll give you fire.

 

                                    The classroom is all hush and dark.

                                    I knock and raise the ghost-green light

 

                                    That's gone as quick as the meteorite

                                    I saw scrawl over Pegasus.

 

                                    Did I see it or did I think it?

                                    I sniff the stones.  They smell of burn.

Bronze Age

And a third... 

                                    BRONZE AGE

 

                                    The magic man with his string of nags

                                    And handsome, dark apprentices

                                    Comes tinkling out of the haunted wood

                                    And through the fields around the rath

                                    And kids and household dogs run out

                                    To mob him in.  The king himself

                                    Strides from his hall to meet a man

                                    Dressed like himself in soft, fine wool

                                    And both make speeches.  Bales of samples-

                                    Swords, spears, cowbells and chisels-

                                    Are spread on the ground and pondered on

                                    And the king chooses.  Watched by kids

                                    And smooth, unmarried daughters of generals

                                    Master and men construct their furnace

                                    There in the forecourt and cast the bronze.

                                    Afterwards, when the king has tested

                                    His fine new blade on a hide or two

                                    And while the court draws round to hear

                                    Such tales as only a smith can tell,

                                    A bold apprentice and a daughter,

                                    Risking blinding or something worse,

                                    Slip from the firelight hand in hand

                                    Out through the now unguarded gate

                                    To lie in the high plumed grass all night

                                    And wish on the bright star we call Vega.