qarrtsiluni

I’m walking down the cobbled
streets of Rouen. Cabbage leaves
blacken in the gutters.
In the square they are burning

Joan of Arc. Her eyes are
transparent with light. Through veils
of flame she says, Truth is a torch,
but it makes a beautiful blaze.

The crowd is weeping.
With charred lips of light
she says, A dead body
is only a dead body.

How can we tell ash from soul
unless we too rise,
a blue heron of smoke
slanting into flight —

that pulse of a wing so slow,
so soaring when she says,
We are all burning.
Be a greater fire.

by Oriana

Reading by Beth Adams — Download the MP3

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