Embers

When the embers from this campfire begin to dim low, what will we see in their orange-red glow? Will we see things that are too hard to say? Things about tomorrow or from yesterday? The crackling of the logs become like words, popping and snapping to make their thoughts heard. The fire once bright will soon go its way and the night almost over as we await the new day. The embers remind us not to wait too long for before you know it, the fire is gone. The embers go too, but gently and slow unlike the fire that put on a show, a fire that roared and reared up into the sky almost blinding us with white hot flames so high, an incandescence we thought would burn for days throwing off heat and a wispy-wood haze. But that would not be, for soon we would see the embers appear and those limbs from the tree that we used for the flames would disappear in smoke just like the things we once did and the words we once spoke. So we stare at the embers and what have we learned, now that the fire that once warmed us has burned and is reduced to almost nothing and ashes it'll soon be and the orange-red embers become dust and forever set free. copyright © 2019 Gregory Firlotte