Four dream fires

You are not the poem I am writing about.

There were four fires in my dream

Mountain fires in four separate places

Started in my mind

And burning fine fynbos, before

Turning to hottest foreign pines and gums.

Four fires in four places

Turning direction in the wind

Four fires destroying and edging closer

To the houses on the edge

Now burning little piles, now big piles

Of second-hand books, my dead father’s books

My books, the childIneverhad’s books.

Each book a word

Each book a feeling

Each book up in flames

And a dream me

On the edge

Of four fires.