An explication of Derek Walcott’s poem “A City’s Death by Fire”

Photo courtesy of The Independent

A City's Death By Fire

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,

I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, I
Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;
Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales
Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.
By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, why
Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?
In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;
To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath
Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,
Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.
Derek Walcott

Explication
The intensity of the loss is captured in the personification in the title of the poem “A City’s death by Fire”. A city is said to die yet it is not a living organism that dies. However, the metaphor captures the existence of the town which in totality is like an organism that has life. When the fire consumes the city, its heritage such as buildings and daily activities of the city is completely destroyed and which cannot be brought back to original form.Walcott’s poem “City’s Death by Fire” is a lyrical; poem imbued with expression of intensive feelings of loss, sadness and disillusionment that come with the destruction of the city. The persona talks of “faiths that were snapped like wire” (line 4) due to the city’s death. And the circumstances under which the poem is written” under a candles eye that smoked In tears”(line3) delivers a sullen picture of great sadness .

The poem is also effective in its communicating due to use of imagery. The imagery is rich and is extensively captured in various metaphors employed in the poem. The fire is referred to as the “hot gospeller”, an indication of the fire’s might and the manner in which it widely spread like the way gospel is spread. This is followed by the metaphor “churched sky” which means that the sky like untouchable church is never affected by the fire. Together with the metaphor of ‘hills that were flocks of faith” (line11) which gives the picture of many sheep grazing in peace, help draw a sharp contrast between the persona’s “wooden world” and the natural world which is not affected by the fire. This contrast in the two world’s created by the images of the two worlds show how unreliable and insecure the persona’s world that has been created by humans is and therefore worth not putting trust in. Therefore to alter persona’s mistaken faith in man made world, his world has to go through a transformation captured in the image enhancing allusion of “baptism by fire”.
Loss of persona’s faith in his “wooden world” is captured on the similes “…faiths that were snapped like wire” which shows that the impact of the fire is so sudden and which suddenly demands a new way of looking at life. People’s faith in their indestructible world is suddenly broken and thus their pain as their belief is destroyed. The persona is shocked at the walls that stood on the street “…like liars”. The walls give a false picture of the reality; of the city as it were before its destruction and which cannot now be brought back to life.

However, in the last stanza the persona expresses much hope for the town and its people since there “baptism” by fire marks the beginning of a new well founded faith that is not based on man made things