In the heart of chaos,
where lightning kisses earth,
fire spirits bloom like whispers,
their laughter crackling through the void,
eyes throbbing like embered stars.

Ashen breath of ancient trees drifts aside.
Beneath their blazing revel,
seeds lie in wait, cradled in darkness.
Watch them twirl in rapture,
flaming wings banish rotting ghosts,
each flicker a vow, each burst a buried prayer.

Forests fall into cinder,
but meadows rise from soot,
a cascade of color unfurling
through char-streaked loam.
Wildflowers lean into healing suns;
fields exhale with newborn lungs.

How blind the human gaze,
scorched by fear, by the memory of wounds,
yet within the fire’s dance, a truth endures:
immortals see with unclouded sight.

Listen —
they do not sing of ruin,
but of turning circles, of spirals reborn.
They mourn nothing lost in smoke
but rejoice in what ash releases —
joyful rebirths, fierce and whole.

If only hearts could hear their song,
the wild cadence would not stir dread.
Every crackle speaks, the lore of fire:
a balance held with tenderness,
a covenant in flame.

An eternal dance,
chaos braided with creation.
In every fleeing spark,
a dawn begins again.
They bear joy in the wake of endings,
rekindling the vivid scrawl of life.
What perishes in decay

may rise more luminous than before.

[Murray Eiland is a poet and archaeologist.]