SITTING BEFORE J.M.W. TURNER’S BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT IN THE CLEVELAND ART MUSEUM by G.C. Waldrep

It’s hard not to think, especially here, that the river must be burning.
In the meantime some men & women are paid to count everything.
Fire where the fire should be, in the place of the sun.  It’s about justice,
although it doesn’t know this yet.  Or the river is teaching
the fire some new word which fire is struggling, boldly, to pronounce.
It’s very late now, against the backdrop of mutual extinctions.
Next word! fire declares, thumbing the pages of the city’s open book.

G.C. Waldrep’s most recent books are feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021); and The Opening Ritual (Tupelo, forthcoming 2024). Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University.

29 December 2025