Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Jean Toomer: Banking Coal
Whoever it was who brought the first wood and coal
To start the Fire, did his part well;
Not all wood takes to fire from a match,
Nor coal from wood before it’s burned to charcoal.
The wood and coal in question caught a flame
And flared up beautifully, touching the air
That takes a flame from anything.
Somehow the fire was furnaced,
And then the time was ripe for some to say,
“Right banking of the furnace saves the coal.”
I’ve seen them set to work, each in his way,
Though all with shovels and with ashes,
Never resting till the fire seemed most dead;
Whereupon they’d crawl in hooded night-caps
Contentedly to bed. Sometimes the fire left alone
Would die, but like as not spiced tongues
Remaining by the hardest on till day would flicker up,
Never strong, to anyone who cared to rake for them.
But roaring fires never have been made that way.
I’d like to tell those folks that one grand flare
Transferred to memory tissues of the air
Is worth a like, or, for dull minds that turn in gold,
All money ever saved by banking coal.
Public Domain
An important figure in African-American literature, Jean Toomer (1894—1967) was born in Washington, DC, the grandson of the first governor of African-American descent in the United States. A poet, playwright, and novelist, Toomer’s most famous work, Cane, was published in 1923 and was hailed by critics for its literary experimentation and portrayal of African-American characters and culture.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Such a multilayered poem! Toomer clearly knew home fires and furnaces, and the people who tended them—I think of my own Welsh family, my grandmother and what she taught me about laying a fire and keeping it going, in a grate or a cookstove, the fireman shoveling coal in the steam train that ran up and down our valley, or the iron-smelting furnaces of Dowlais and Merthyr. But I’m also struck by the social and political implications of the embers that look spent but that can come alive and flicker up if one rakes them.
LikeLike
Thanks, Maura. My wife and I lived in a house for ten years that had only a wood burning stove for heat. I spent a lot of time cutting and splitting logs, and as you say, tending the fire was a lot of work. It was enjoyable though… and I miss it.
>
LikeLike
Somehow this short phrase: “touching the air
That takes a flame from anything.” is so powerful for me….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brings back memories, perhaps OF memories as I’m never sure any more of the exactness of my “memories”. As a child, perhaps until I was 10 or 12, our home was heated by radiators warmed by a massive coal furnace in the cellar of our CT home. (An aside memory was the thrilling days of coal delivery, roaring down a chute thru a small cellar window which memory is only spurred by the sound of waterfalls today.) I was always earlier to bed than my parents so one of them did the “banking” to keep us relatively warm overnight and make sure there were hot coals in the morning. But on many mornings, I was tasked with removing the ashes from a bottom chamber and shoveling more coal into the upper to “fire up” the furnace and raise our home’s temperature. Somewhere around that time in my life the advance of a “conversion burner” was introduced to our cellar with its accompanying heating oil tank to take the place of the coal and the magic was gone. My thanks to Jean Toomer and VP for re-igniting those moments in my life.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing these memories, Mel.
>
LikeLike
Thank youvery much dear editor for introducing this good poet
LikeLike
Yes, Jean Toomer was an excellent poet who is not read much anymore. What a pity!
>
LikeLike