Into the glow
I project myself.
Into a fire,
Where, after fire’s burn,
Fires of ten thousand years,
Fires of and through
History itself,
Appear.

Contemplation takes hold:
Krakatoa alive;
Dresden ablaze;
Rome – dead.

The crematoriums;
The furnaces of Auschwitz.

The blaze;
A tool which for man
Works both ways.

I bring to life
In these coals,
Visions from younger days
And the Australian bush
Regenerated after the fire,
A bush that thrives
And lives through and survives
Its natural fires.

Then I remember
The ashes that remain
After the conflagrations
Of man’s making,
That perforate history.

The fire of man
Whether as tool or as weapon
Too easily turns against him,
And too easily can be turned.

And there is another fire I see,
Ten thousand thousand trees ablaze,
The cloud rising ever
Upward and outward
In its efficiency of destruction.
Man’s preparation for
His own extirpation.

But on this fire man
Will remain dependant.
On the fire supplied
By nature.
Dependant for his
Livelihood,
And his destruction.