Tinder by Kami Bevington, Listener Poet — The Good Listening Project

*Excerpt of Tinder by Kami Bevington, Listener Poet*

Origin Story

This poemee is a former college professor who served as an acting academic dean and department head. She continued teaching students (her primary love!) even as she held these latter appointments, insisting that it was important not to lose touch with what being in an actual classroom entails. She shared with me how a devastating house fire caused by a propane explosion several decades ago changed the fabric of her and her husband’s lives, reflecting on their experiences both before and after that terrible morning.

She spoke about the ways this traumatic event shaped who she is today: a person with an “unshakeable peace” born of deep faith, which was strengthened as the result of her and her husband being met time and time again with divine grace and an abundance of human kindness as they recovered from their severe injuries.

Kami Bevington, Listener Poet
Certified Listener Poet Cohort 7 Practicum
Winter 2024

Tinder

By Kami Bevington, Listener Poet

Fire can be fierce.

And that day's maimed us —

our skin,
our ears,
our countenances

its red-orange fists seizing our grip;
their rage laying claim to our own

fingers kindled
as it crippled our
flame-charred hands.

Propane exploding!

In a flicker of
for all time — it seemed
the blazes had taken
everything:

our home,
our health,
our good, good life.

Bodies burnt as severely as ours
must be lain immodestly
on debridement tables bare

tinder tinder tinder
there and everywhere.

I remember that morning
being like so many others —

save for a volunteer firefighter,
jogging where
(he’d known not
why)
he never had before:

his steps directed
to a sudden inferno

that had us
bent
                                low
inside.

Surely he was an angel!

The first of a whole host that
would our plight attend
strangers not, we knew —
as we entertained them
aware.

No tragedy can outstretch the arms of redemption.

If it weren't for the fire and all that it ushered
    in — the mercy and love that so lavishly ensued,
I don't think I could have survived
my husband's future battle with
dementia.

Sometimes the worst of events is a catalyst most kind:
for an encircling of the knowing grace
He draws with goodness
wide.

More Poems & Stories

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