Come up the steps, he said, and we climbed not expecting anything much
and saw a world stretched out like a football pitch of playground tarmac
with manholes and potholes and pipes and wires
and two little huts like car park attendants' huts, on rails,
one for each side of the chimney, the massive chimney
larger than ever now, but which he would not let us approach
and he told us how the fire contained in this great building
had been burning all my life, how it leapt from chamber to chamber
at the urging of valves and holes knocked through the wicket
how the fire was controlled by Brian the burner and how
under our feet even now, a short way down, bricks were burning
at over 900C; and lifted a lid, and we looked down and saw them.
Fierce, their edges already sharpened by a darkness of draught,
almost transparent with inner heat. And it being cold, we huddled
over the well but felt nothing. He threw in a handful of small coke, called
smudge, which caught in the air above the bricks, and flared
briefly and brilliantly.
Anne Berkeley