.

Against All Earthly Fire

“Our earthly fire … no matter how fierce or
widespread it may be is always of limited extent.”
—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

A checkered board in frozen mates, gray stones
—seen from the hills that rise above the town—
castles, infrequent knights among the pawns
moonlit in shadows cast on frozen ground.

Come near, the poet walks among the graves:
end notes in marble etched, traces grown faint
of mortal reigns; above the graves, a rage,
a groan, a last embrace of earth’s heartache

asking the overarching question echoed
in dove’s lament beyond the iron gate—
Stillness descends. A sudden comfort of snow
recasts the checkered plat, the mortal fate.

The stones, in white, redress earthly desire,
a field of shields rising against the fire.

.

.

Leland James is the author of six poetry collections, four children’s books in verse, and a book on creative writing and poetry craft. He has published over three hundred poems worldwide including The Lyric, Rattle, London Magazine, The South Carolina Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New Millennium Writings, The American Poetry Review, The Haiku Quarterly, The American Cowboy, and The Ekphrastic Review. He was the winner of the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and has won or received honors in many other competitions, both in the USA and Europe. 
www.lelandjamespoet.com & https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leland-james

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12 Responses

  1. Cheryl Corey

    A stark reminder of our mortality. My favorite phrasing here is “end notes in marble etched, traces grown faint of mortal reigns”.

    Reply
  2. Paul A. Freeman

    Some great imagery in this piece slowly build up a vivid picture.

    My fave quote is exactly the same as Cheryl’s.

    Thanks for the read, Leland.

    Reply
  4. Monika Cooper

    Moonlit cemetery as chessboard, ooh! I especially love the surprise of the closing couplet and the last line – eerily valiantly beautiful.

    The rhymes fall into exactness at the end, as a gate clicks shut.

    Reply
  5. Drilon Bajrami

    The first quatrain painted a beautifully vivid picture of the scene therein. I can also feel the tension in the poem building up until the final couplet and what a finish the couplet is (even further powered by the preceding lines of the comfort of snow), it ties in all the previous lines into two concise and powerful ones.

    Masterfully written poem, Leland.

    Reply
  8. David Hollywood

    This wonderful poem creates and captures such strong emotional imagery. Many thanks

    Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Sophisticated sonnet, Leland, with Joyce’s “earthly fire” as subject, a graveyard as the setting, chess as a source of images, and “the poet” as observer. The snow does indeed recast the scene against the fire, and to good effect, with those shields at first unseen.

    Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    I like the spooky beauty of this sonnet and the striking wonder of the closing line, “a field of shields rising against the fire” – it’s magnificent!

    Reply
  11. Leland James

    Another thank you for the kind comments, as above. It is one of the things that SCPs does that is rare. Feedback from readers. This happens once in a while in other venues. But nothing like here.

    Reply

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