What the Fire Said

Recently my parents lost their retirement home in the Little Bear fire in New Mexico.  Over 200 hundred homes were lost in a beautiful mountain area.  While I had seen the evidence of other fires and watched the images on television, it was not until I saw pictures of the decimated home I had helped to paint and in which many happy memories had been created that I begin to come to terms with the nature of such a fire.  This kind of loss is so different than the losses created by greed or violence--such as a stolen car or a break-in.  It is wholly different in nature and we are completely subject to it.  Here are my thoughts in relation to this event.

What the Fire Said

You won’t need those keys any longer.

The view is less spectacular now.

I can eat nearly anything.

Watch how I bend these beams.

I don’t want that house; I’ll take these.

I ride with the wind—no, I create the wind.

I run faster through steep valleys where your trucks cannot go.

I skip over tall mountains like running the pews.

I can reach much farther than you.

I can take what is precious to you—and you will never get it back.

I can leave you as quickly as I came, with ash as my footprints.

You will leave this area.

I can extend myself in unfathomable ways—up, down, under, over and through.

I am capricious, rapacious and altogether consuming.

I will not be stopped—unless I am starved, drowned or buried.

I am fire and you will listen when I roar!

Copyright M.R. Hyde 2012