The cleansing tongues of fire wiped away the tangible fragments of memories that had accumulated over they years. Old bank statements; receipts from paid utility bills; defunct insurance policies; all put into the 55-gallon drum and set afire. I don’t need this stuff filling up the spaces of my filing cabinet no more than I need it filling up the empty spaces of my mind.I meant to clean up this stuff months ago to make room for the receipts and statements that are new. No need to keep old stuff like that anyway. All it does is take up room and keep a memory alive that needs to die. I don’t think it will ever die, not really. But with the concrete remains of those old memories burned and gone, there is now room for the new things to push the memories of before to a place where they won’t be accessible, at least not easily.
I have always been fascinated with fire. I’ve said that before. I can remember taking matches from my grandmother’s old metal matchbox that hung on the wall in her kitchen and sneaking like a little arsonist outside to see what I could burn. I would pile dead grass on top of ant nests and watch them scurry to save what they could, just like anyone would do if their house was on fire. I would light the ends of hollow reeds and smoke on them like I was smoking a cigarette…not the wisest of things to do, but to a kid, it was oh, so cool. I would take my little plastic army men and watch them melt into little piles of green goo, victims of my own version of napalm. It was harmless fun. The back yard was a pyrotechnic playground. I was always careful. I never let any of the fires get away from my control.
A few days ago, I was almost home when I rounded a corner to see the road almost blocked by several fire trucks and policemen. To my left, I could see a haze of smoke and blackened earth and in some spots, flickers of flame. As fascinated as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder if my house was in danger. I was at a point where I couldn’t see my place and between me and there…there were more fire trucks. They waved me on through. I stopped long enough to ask if it was a controlled burn. A fireman told me no, that it wasn’t. Someone must have started it. Nearly 40 acres had burned. Among the vast expanse of blackened earth, I could see little evergreen trees standing. The way they stood there reminded me of a national cemetery. All those crosses in straight lines…
In The Stand, a book by one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, there was a man who loved fire. He had been teased by peers as a kid and took his frustrations out with the healing and cleansing power of fire. After a virus killed off most of the U.S. population, and left fuel storage tanks literally unattended, Trashcan Man, as he was called, was on a quest to randomly roam the county, setting fires as he went. He nearly burned himself up when he set some gasoline storage tanks on fire to watch them explode. Ultimately, his love for the flame ended his life as well most of those in Las Vegas, and unknowingly thwarted the evil plans of The Dark Man, the leader of one of the two factions that formed in the aftermath of the epidemic. I liked the part of Trashcan Man…he got that name from setting fires in trash cans (one which killed someone, from what I remember). Just talking about this book makes me want to read it all over again.
I have talked about fire before. About how it removes all the dead growth and leaves in its wake a swath of new ground where life can begin anew. Fire is all cleansing. It is indiscriminate. It can be a good thing as well as a catastrophic event. Burning things that remind me of my old life when two were one is no different than the forest fire burning away deadfalls and underbrush. It works just the same to me. While the flames erased the past, I could feel the heat on my clothes. The barrel was emanating a lot of heat; the weather was chilly, not too cold, but I couldn’t tell. I was warm. My jeans were getting hotter than I realized, for when I moved and they touched my legs, it was almost too hot. The smoke would get thick when the fire wasn’t raging. So there were side effects of the fire…smoke and heat. The smoke was swirling around and filling the air and my clothes with its smell. I smelled that smoke on me until disrobing and showering, and even after that, I swear I smelled it in the house. The heat…made me feel good, but if I stayed too close for too long, it was a bit much. I could even have gotten burned if I had gotten closer. I suppose the memories that were burning into ashes could linger too, just like the smoke…and they could burn me too if I lingered too long on them…just like the heat.
I say that I have not let any fires get out of my control. There have been close calls, but they have never gotten out of hand. I saw one get so far out of control, though, that the fire department had to come out and put it out. I used to live in a roughshod trailer in Ooltewah (I live in a trailer now, but nowhere near as bad at this one was). The landlady’s son was, how shall I say it…not very bright. He started a fire one day that got out of his control. I saw it. I watched it. I wrote about it…
Burning Light
Sitting on my back porch I see the gentle spark.
Starting small, it gains new height and intensity,
becoming a burning light.
It quickly grows, sometimes fast,
sometimes slow, but always moving.
Its path is made behind;
black,
burned,
and lifeless.
Fear escapes my conscious mind
and quickly radiates outward,
I look to my right and the field
is a sea of color:
green,
red,
then black.
Blocking the sun is a billowing haze of blue.
Sounds of emergency, sounds of anxiousness,
the silent scream of a dying field.
A quick spray and the flames are gone.
Excitement dies, sounds disappear
and I soon return to my chair
relaxing and thinking about
fire,
death,
and rebirth.
Being burned doesn’t feel too good. I have been burned many times and the pain is enormous. Never anything that left substantial scars. A touch of my leg to a motorcycle muffler, a hot piece of metal on the fingers, a coal from a campfire popping and landing on me…just small burns. I couldn’t imagine being burned so bad like burn victims in hospitals. I have heard that the pain for those people is so intense that it feels like it goes to the bones. Being burned alive is a great fear of mine. Strange, coming from someone who likes fire. But I know what it can do, so great care is taken when I burn anything.
Fire is destructive, whether you are using it for heat like from a campfire or stove, or whether you are burning up old sticks and debris. But it could also be a thing of beauty, metaphorically speaking, as what exists between two souls in love with each other. The fire already exists in each one of us; it only needs the fuel and constant tending that being in love gives it…
Hearts on Fire
Love inspires
the heart’s desires
for the never ending search
of the ancient fire
that burns within each soul.
Combustion starts
whenever two hearts
are pulled by strings,
tied together
till the rhythmic beat is one.
As time goes by
the flames grow high
to warm the heart and free the tongue
to release the words
that pour out like steam into your ear.
The fire will burn
and the heart will not yearn
for the cold, hard stone
it had been.
Instead, in it’s place
is a flame with your face
as the source of fuel to keep
our love alive.
I like fire for so many reasons. But I think I like the representation of it bringing forth new life and the metaphor of being in love the most. I feel the desire to tend to the flame, to keep adding fuel to it to keep it alive, to watch the flickering inferno do its job. To stand close and feel the warmth bring comfort to my body, my heart, my soul.
I just don’t want to be burned.
