Author's Note: Descriptive Essay, written 18 April 2007
Written as a school assignment.
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Destructive, consoling, beautiful, calming, painful, haunting, dangerous; all these and more can only but nearly insignificantly describe the dancing flickering flames of a fire.
Its true raw form is a crackling burst of flowering flames dependant not only on the oxygen but the quickly burning wood at its base. If it weren’t for those blackening logs of long forgotten trees then the fire itself would not be able to blaze away, heating our bodies and minds. To our bodies it is a source of pain and warmth but also ashes too close and its licking petals would scorch your flesh, but too far and its comforting warmth would forget you and move to the next victim or brave soul. But if you could be at the perfect distance, than both mind and body could embrace the soothing warmth without disturbing the fierce battle of the flames to reach up to the heavens
But what is the ‘perfect distance’. The ‘perfect distance’ can only be described once you are able to see the flames proudly dance into the night with its yellow exterior and deepening shades of red and orange right down to its blue fighting spirit and feel at ease and in comfort, mesmerised by the beauty of this element that not only warms you but comforts you like a close friend or lover, and like a friend or lover the fire can also hurt you if you threaten its reach for the stars. It can become a destructive and dangerous companion where it once was a consoling and gentle one.
To some it represents all they have lost or it even could be the cause of what they have lost because fire though warm and so enchanting knows no mercy.
Some see fire as a reflection of many things, hatred, comfort, love, pain some use fir to describe their feelings like burning passion or blistering pain. When you love doesn’t it feel as if there’s a burst of warmth surging and lighting you and when it is lost or taken you feel choked and brought to tears with what’s left behind, like a burning flame that flickers and dances warming you until its flame is extinguished, leaving behind dark unbreathable smoke and charcoal remains hardly able to keep the spark within their grasp, along with the as of burned up wood that solemnly floats in the air, encouraging us to mourn with it over its lost source of life with stolen tears
Sometimes that choking bitter smoke that fire releases takes people to memories of how destructive and merciless its true nature is and before the memory fully surfaces they hurriedly bury it as they bury the ashes with the heat of the last flame
Fire is like a never filling void, always hungry for anything and everything, always growing and wanting more, unable to restrain itself as it tries to consume all that it’s given or ungiven all for the purpose of growing, wildly dancing petals eager to expand and reach for the stars, an impossible dream, a pointless task, yet for the purpose, a reason to exist it rages and comforts, unable to spare mercy.
A dangerous hot flower blazing beautiful regardless of its faults, a mesmerising existence unable to be held or truly embraced without injury, such is the element of Fire.
