Flowers and Fire Tracks

 

Flowers and Fire Tracks
Crimson poppies unfurl in the morning’s soft gold,
velvet petals trembling with dew like fragile jewels.
They drink the sun’s warm kiss,
stand tall in emerald fields where breezes sigh and play,
a riot of scarlet and violet,
alive, defiant, delicate as whispered prayers.Yet fire tracks claw the same earth black—
charred bones of once-proud trees,
twisted skeletons etched against the sky,
ash drifting like gray snow on the wind’s cold breath.
The ground still smolders faintly,
a bitter tang of smoke clinging to the air,
where life once danced now lies in silent ruin.These twin scars lie side by side,
a quiet warning carved into the world’s own skin:
how swiftly we can veer from the path we know,
one careless spark, one unguarded gust,
and the steady flame of our days
twists into roaring hunger, then fades to ash.We too are blossoms—
radiant for a season,
petals soft against the storm,
hearts open wide to light we cannot keep.
And we are fire tracks—
the sudden blaze that devours,
the swift descent to silence,
how quick the wick burns low,
how fragile the glow that holds us here.In the hush between bloom and ember,
between the first sweet breath and the final sigh,
we glimpse the truth:
life is no straight and certain road,
but a fleeting dance of fire and flower—
beautiful, brief,
one heartbeat from vanishing into the dark.