Fire
That night, I was the first to sleep.
He always turned on his side
after making love and I followed;
smoothed his rumpled, ridiculously
boyish hair, tangled our legs,
tucked my arm around his chest
and inhaled our bodies’ warmth.
But that night, as he lay on his back
in our bedroom by the butterfly
tree,
I fell asleep on his shoulder.
Our children breathed
beneath their duvets.
The street was hushed,
cold and lamp- lit.
He heard an urgent nhee-nhah nhee-nhah
in the distance,
wondered (being a fireman’s son)
how many machines were out;
pondered - he told me days later -
the swiftness and intensity of
fire.
That night, I melted like candle-wax.
Sunrise at the Valkyrie Rock -- Paul Berenson
Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" was a cycle of music dramas that he called a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play). It was performed in its entirety for the 1st time in 1876. Brünnhilde, the daughter of Wotan ("Odin") and Erda the earth goddess, had disobeyed her father, who stripped of her immortal Valkyrie status and condemned her to an ageless sleep. Loge ("Loki") created a circle of fire around her, penetrable only by one without fear. Siegfried, the mortal grandson of Wotan and the product of an incestuous union that had led to Brünnhilde's own curse, was told by a bird about a woman sleeping on a rock surrounded by magic fire. Siegfried, wondering if he can learn fear from her, followed the bird to the rock, penetrated the ring of fire, and saw a sleeping figure. Assuming it was a man, he removed her armor, but became alarmed at the sight of the 1st woman he had ever seen. Kissing her, he woke from her magic sleep, and they made love.
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