What does this poem mean?

Question

My Life's Calling
by Deborah Digges


My life's calling, setting fires.
Here in a hearth so huge
I can stand inside and shove
the wood around with my
bare hands while church bells
deal the hours down through
the chimney. No more
woodcutter, creel for the fire
or architect, the five staves
pitched like rifles over stone.
But to be mistro-elemental.
The flute of clay playing
my breath that riles the flames,
the fire risen to such dreaming
sung once from landlords' attics.
Sung once the broken lyres,
seasoned and green.
Even the few things I might save,
my mother's letters,
locks of my children's hair
here handed over like the keys
to a foreclosure, my robes
remanded, and furniture
dragged out into the yard,
my bedsheets hoisted up the pine,
whereby the house sets sail.
And I am standing on a cliff
above the sea, a paper light,
a lantern. No longer mine
to count the wrecks.
Who rode the ships in ringing,
marrying rock the waters
storm to break the door,
looked through the fire, beheld
a clearing there. This is what
you are. What you've come to.

Not wheree is it from...THE MEANING

Answer 1

it's the Mariner's Song, if i am not incorrect.

Answer 2

It is not the mariner's song.

the act of setting a fire is used a metaphor for the act of writing poetry. She says it's hard to write poetry, because to write honest poems the poet has to metaphorically burn the things she loves, she has to sacrifice "even the few things [she] might save" for the sake of her "life's calling."

In playing the "flute of clay" the poet identifies herself as a poet in the spirit of Pan and Apollo.

she implies that her poetry is a more honest message than the church bells being dealt down the chimney, and a more powerful message than anything rifles could offer. Also it's no accident that uses the word staves when comparing the wood to rifles, since staves is a word that can also describe musical notation.

I would say she considers burning the wood as a kind of sacrifice. In her mind the huge hearth is really a kind of altar, it's an altar to the world where she is sacrificing herself and her life for the sake of kindling honest fires in the hearts of others.

The last third of the poem doesn't work as well IMO. It's kind of a mixed metaphor where she wonders about the real-world effects her poetry actually has. Her fire has been reduced to a paper light, a lantern on a cliff that shines light and reveals a bunch of shipwrecks below, the implication is that the light from her poetry--which was supposed to lead other ships to a safe harbor like a lighthouse--has actually led the ships to catastrophe and ruin.

Answer 3

In my view, it sounds like lamenting loss of a meaningful sense of self, sense of identity.The items that afford her sense of self -
my mother's letters,
locks of my children's hair
here handed over like the keys
to a foreclosure, my robes
remanded, and furniture
dragged out into the yard,
my bedsheets hoisted up the pine,
whereby the house sets sail.
- have been destroyed or cast away during some forced eviction from her domicile. This is the event she likens to gushing flames of fire which consumed the house as if 'set on sail'. She survives as if 'standing on a cliff/ above the sea, a paper light,/ a lantern. The image of standing on a cliff re-enforces the idea of loneliness and sense of helplessness after the ships left. In a way, she has just rediscovered a new sense of self after this demonstration of tragic human cruelty, "This is what/ you are. What you've come to."
Deborah's poems, as observers and critics have said, often address "the relationship between humans and nature, the primitive urges of discovery and rediscovery."


good luck