Barrelling Through the Chimney

“The Duende…is a fire to be stepped into. It comes up through the soles of our feet and burns within us as a creative passion. We are not merely touched by an angel, we become the channel and the chimney through which the fire rages.”—Nick Bantock

chimney & channel
channel & chimney
chim chim chiree
here's how our night life
is turning out to be

he looked for the remote control
channel swimming from 24-7 news
to a fiercely fought basketball game
until he gave up
there was nothing
nothing to be found
among an array of 98 channels
to hold down his keen
logic-driven mind
so he turned on the nightlight
& read himself to sleep as usual

unknowingly elsewhere in the house
one of the vietnamese-made
marionettes hanging over the chimney
reached for a pair of scissors
in an abaca-covered jar

let loose she & her companions
somersaulted from
chimney top to floor
upsetting the baby’s
parked pram the infant's car seat
& the enlarged ceramic heart signed
by a sculptor & installed
on a pedestal of salvaged wood

i joined them in their gleeful swinging
after slipping out of my night dress
& putting on a mothballed ao-dai
sans pantaloons

better than sendak’s wild things
our great rumpus of nightly freedom
could not be clamped down by repetitive
clicks of channel surfers &
the silence of chimneys
that once sparkled with lovely live embers

nightly we've learned to cut off
the largesse that comes with strings attached
& run up the the chimney to the rooftop
begging the night sky
to unite us with our original stardust

before the sun’s rays
sliced through slits of the blinds below
we slid down noiselessly

the marionettes trooped back
to the chimney’s top
i undressed slipped back
into my ratty-tatty night dress
& once more giggled myself to sleep

--Babeth Lolarga

Photo of Bell House interior at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, by Babeth
Source of Bantock quote: http://nick-bantock.blogspot.com/2012/01/wasnick-blog-14-duende-v-muse.html