Fire

Fire walks barefoot through the dark,
carrying dawn in both hands.
It eats the silence first — 
then the wood,
then the names we carved into it.

A single spark
can turn a winter room holy.
Can turn fear into smoke,
can turn steel soft enough
to remember it once came from earth.

Fire does not apologize
for wanting air.
It rises because rising
is the only language
it has ever known.

And still — 
people gather around it at night,
not for destruction,
but for warmth,
for proof that even wild things
can keep us alive.