13 Ways Of Looking At Fire | Teen Ink

13 Ways Of Looking At Fire MAG

October 12, 2017
By gajainn13 BRONZE, Falling Waters, West Virginia
gajainn13 BRONZE, Falling Waters, West Virginia
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I. Nestled beneath looming wooden logs, the
small glow of an ember begins to shine, the
frail fire’s flames flickering, a slow, solo
waltz.
II. Sometimes I feel chaotic and uncontrollable,
like a wildfire, destroying everything in
its path. Other times, I feel weak and fragile,
like a dying ember, about to be extinguished
by the slightest of winds.
III. The ashes danced across the sky, painting
the horizon a hazy gray.
IV. The white ash once burned so bright, the
fiery log burns slowly, and the untouched
brush, yet to be scathed by the blistering
heat, all tied up in a dramatic tango of past,
present, and future.
V. I’m not quite sure what comforts me the
most about the blaze right in front of me:
the way the fire just barely illuminates the
seemingly endless darkness, the sound
of the fire crackling, or the way I feel my
cheeks grow rosy in the burning heat.
VI. Flickering light filled the forest, casting
long shadows which seemed to shift to fit
my deepest fears.
VII. Why search tirelessly for an endless
inferno when the simple joys of a familial
campfire are easily at hand?
VIII. When I’m trapped in my own head, my
thoughts are uncontrollable. They run wild,
like the massive flames that ravage
the California redwood forests.
IX. Fire doesn’t care. It has no sentient
thought. When it is alit and ablaze, it doesn’t
care who you are. It can, and will, destroy
you, and anything in its path.
X. It enraptures everyone. Fire. The simple
beauty in the flames, in the way they dance
and move, that even the prima ballerinas
at Julliard would bow down to the
magnificence.
XI. Simply mistaken, the soft glow of the
distant pyre was nothing more but a
forgotten porch lamp before turning into
something much more monstrous.
XII. The wind is blowing, the ashes
are flowing.
XIII. The fire was burning all hours of the
day. The rain was pouring, and pour it shall.
The fire died at the base of the redwood, but
grew inside my soul.


The author's comments:

In my creative writing class, we had to write a poem mentoring the 13 Ways of Looking At A Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. This was my interpretation of it. It's a story of love, and love lost, and personal development.


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