Soon leaves of flame fandango, flaunt And wrangle in the smoke

The Better Word
by Vernon Scannell

Bonfire: A great fire in which bones were burnt in the open air.
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Summer's petals shiver in the cold,
And dim atelier of memory;
Their scent is difficult to resurrect.
Sensitive potatoes have grown old;
First sweetness lost, they're stout and coarse, like me:
Their toughened skin is maculate and flecked
With warts and wens. This is a time for fires
In gardens and in grates. Outside the trees
And shrubs are vague and sorrowful in the mist;
Stems of clematis, like tangled wires,
Torment the trellis. Under apple trees
Rotting Bramleys deliquesce when pressed
Beneath my heavy tread. In spite of all
The sodden earth and vaporous air I stack
Branches, twigs, stale news, a magazine,
Some broken toys, aborted poems' stained scrawl,
All things that fire is eager to attack,
Or will be when I splash the parrafin
On wood and paper, add the match's flare,
Like so: soon leaves of flame fandango, flaunt
And wrangle in the smoke: an ancient scent,
Both sweet and acrid, spices swirling air;
Faint images and far-off speakings haunt
The weather in the skull, all redolent
Of unspecific loss; but then, as plain
As if the child were by my side, I hear
The voice from almost thirty years ago
Of my son Toby calling me again
To make a grandfire, and the word is clear:
Let's make a grandfire, Dad! And still I know,
As I knew then, that through mishearing or
The infant tongue;'s recalcitrance he'd found
A better word than 'bonfire' for this blaze
Whose flames are now gone widdershin and roar
And crackle, spitting pips of sparks around
In truly grand and not ossiverous ways.

From The Spectator, 13 April 1991