Do you remember how it felt when you saw for the very first time the self-assuredness of the flames of a bonfire, crackling with abandon, with no concern about who gets in their way?
Did you feel ignited too? Did you feel envious? Because I did.
Have you ever been taken to the point of absolute zero when you gazed into the center of a fire for longer than you should have? I have.
Fire frightens, fire fascinates. It incites, it invigorates.
It cleanses the spirit inside when we drink it from sunlight. It clears away that which the living can’t take care of anymore.
In Hindu ceremonies, fire is the chief guest. It is our primary witness when we marry, and our final chariot when we die.
In the fourteen lines below, I have attempted to hold fire as it has held me through daily rituals to once-in-a-lifetime ones - gently, knowingly, courageously.
Is this a way of exerting control over the ultimately uncontrollable? Maybe. Is this a way of making meaning of something forever unknowable? Definitely.
A sonnet : fire
Blue lotus bud, when a candle contains; but flames amplify like echoes unheard. Wild gold swirls eat stale letters and ink stains - smoke and ashes now, yesterday’s old hurts. Meant to be a ritual to inspire; turned to an unsettling invitation to burn her pyre, like someone conspired - Bad timing or some strange divination? I burn incense sticks by the windowsill; jasmine fumes, the full moon, fill up my room. I close my eyes and imagine the hills, lights of the fireflies cut through the gloom - I saw her there, but I still struck a match. I saw her there as I forgot to latch.
The sonnet was absolutely brilliant.🩵