Fire-A poem by Sandhya Misra

I meet Fire for our daily evening walk.

The sky is the same hue as it.

But fire looks glum and dim today,

and it tells me, “I no longer want to be called Fire!”

The street vendors,

with carts overflowing with exotic clementines,

turn their heads towards us, bemused,

but Fire has refused

to be called its name,

hence begins the game:

Call yourself rage, I say.

Like you, it demolishes with craze

and salivates for a taste

of the rubble.

It has burnt and moulded worlds

brighter your flames-

a change maker-

hence its fame.

I object! cries fire.

A beacon of fire can light the way to greater things,

maybe even the divine!

Yet rage only blinds,

rage only divides.

At least the making of fire brings two stones together.

Rage wrenches us all apart,

using its blood-stained lever.

Call yourself memory:

glaring and vivid.

Throw a blanket over it,

and it may concede.

Oxygenate it

and you’ve planted the destructive seed.

Fire has more qualms-

but memory is a wild arrow released from its quiver,

it flows like a river!

What do I have in common with a body of water?

Well, what,

pray tell, stubborn mule,

should we call you?

Fire replies- let me take your name!

I would, dear friend, but unlike you,

I don’t extinguish.

Have you seen my resilience?

Then I’ll call myself youth.

Fiery is their passion!

I tell Fire, its bulb isn’t that bright-

if it knew anything, it would know our passions

were vanquished by some dark knight.

Call yourself a shadow,

they say you are what you consume.

Fire tells me if that were true,

it could call itself forests, homes, or even the whole world!

Call yourself "women"!

No, I only reside within them.

Call yourself ash,

what if you are what you leave behind?

Your legacy, culture, and traditions?

Or what if you are what you do? Should I call myself “burn”?

Well, you also cackle, flicker, and dout.

I think…says Fire, I like the name Fire just fine.

But it was fun, to think of what it is, that makes us who we truly are.

With everything but a name, the self is defined.

We chatted the evening away, ping-ponging until the sky turned darker than the coal fire eats.

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