through the heart of the sun

I'm sitting in my freshly re-organised front room, trying to convince my hind-brain that this is where work happens now. I don't know how successful I'm being at it, or how I might increase the amount of success. On the other hand, the cats seem pretty pleased that they have a whole bed to sprawl on beside a human.

We apparently also have a family of juvenile brown rats in our back garden, so there's probably several nests lurking in the shrubbery. Have a poem!

Fire-Flowers
by Emily Pauline Johnson

And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.

And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again.