Ode to Fire

What is fire? Has any person, even any scientist figured that out?

It seems to be alive, living. It dies without food and air, it is heat. It warms, but destroys. It reduces a tree to merely a few ashes. When it burns a forest is returns the nutrients to the soil so that the forest regenerates.

It gathers people together around it's warmth and light, provokes storytelling. It is reminiscent of good times. But it also can provoke terror and fear. It is essential to life, even if we live in a world of electricity. Without fire, people would end.

Every Native American tribe has it's story of how people came by fire, they needed it to live. The Europeans didn't have stories of how people came by fire, but it was just as essential to their life. It is necessary to my life as well.

I love holding fire, even if the only ways I can hold it is inside of me or and the end of something burning. Fire is beautiful.