another poetic moment

We got this note in email this morning:

Dear Parents,

The city of Charlottesville is conducting smoke testing in our area. Some smoke entered the school building this morning and we have evacuated all the children. They are all currently in the playground while we are waiting for the smoke to clear.…

They then asked us to retrieve our kids early, so I went in to pick up the boy while he was in the middle of his playground-picnic lunch.

As we were walking to the car, Benjamin was telling me about the smoke. He said, "It twisted the sinews of my heart!"

On the way to school that morning, we had been reciting William Blake:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?