The Little Canticles of Asturias

I And then at midnight as we started to descend Into the burning valley of Gijon, Into its blacks and crimsons, in medias res, It was as if my own face burned again In front of the fanned-up lip and crimson maw Of a pile of newspapers lit long ago One windy evening, breaking off and away In flame-posies, small airborne fire-ships Endangering the house-thatch and the stacks - For we almost panicked there in the epic blaze Of those furnaces and hot refineries Where the night shift worked on in their element And we lost all hope of reading the map right And gathered speed and cursed the hellish roads. Seamus Heaney