Such Fiery Flowers
by Marguerite Alvis Venable
Life beautiful and masterless is mine:
This burning sky, this music like a wind
Of twisted fire on fire, these ancient trees
Like giants in the earth, and all I find
Of certain loveliness in grass and stars
And sun and space and windy wave and song;
The words of genius blazing on a page,
The talk of friends, and laughter ringing long,
The mind at work, clean-cut and sinuous.
And when the night constricts to points of flame
And fire runs in the veins, and, white-hot, leaps
Between our clasping souls, that cannot name
Such agonies of love, such fiery flowers;
Life masterless and beautiful is ours.