That hand of fire that touched my lips (Denise Levertov)

Caedmon

                        All others talked as if

                        talk were a dance.

                        Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet

                        would break the gliding ring.

                        Early I learned to

                        hunch myself

                        close by the door:

                        then when the talk began

                        I’d wipe my

                        mouth and went

                        unnoticed back to the barn

                        to be with the warm beasts

                        dumb among body sounds

                        of the simple ones. 

                        I’d see by a twist

                        of lit rush the motes

                        of gold moving

                        from shadow to shadow

                        slow in the wake

                        of deep untroubled sighs.

                        The cows

munched or stirred or were still.  I

was at home and lonely,

both in good measure.  Until

the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing

my feeble beam,

a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:

but the cows as before

were calm, and nothing was burning,

            nothing but I, as that hand of fire

touched my lips and scorched my tongue

and pulled my voice

            into the ring of the dance.

--Denise Levertov

Poem source
Image source:  Luke Allsbrook, The Vision of Isaiah, 2006