Origin

All the deepest magics are bred upon the hearth.

Warm brick and whistling kettles,

story-tongued salamanders leaping to climb chimney walls

only to fall back down as crumbling soot,

Almost before they have driven us

out of Dark and into Dream

guiding here and there by rough words, few, unsteady, and dim.

Tomorrow, behind porridge gently steaming in the pale dawn,

a bitterer curse may brew;

and all day the evening meal will muse upon the spit.

Advertisement