For H.B.
                          If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
                          but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
                          —1 Corinthians 3:15

His fear was all and fuel.
So spread it did, the angel fire,
igniting the cedar that he himself
had laid beneath the diamonds,
gold, and straw. The beauty
of his raiment was a living
garb as he went up on his
ironic pyre, crackling.
Each organ screamed to enter
there in a saffron cloud,
then almost clear. All soul
was he in those alarms to keep
his bones aflame and heart attired.