Fire

by Al Konda

I didn’t write this poem thinking about flame as passion or destruction.

I wrote it thinking about the kind of fire you carry.

The kind that doesn’t announce itself.

The kind that stays when noise has gone quiet.

The kind that costs something to keep alive.

Fire begins at the end of the day, when even the birds stop speaking. That’s where I often notice it — not in excitement, not in triumph, but in the moment when clarity refuses to let me rest. A small coal pressed gently against fear.

This fire doesn’t belong to me. It moves through me. Every breath lifts it, changes it, passes it on. The ground itself feels shaped by older burnings, as if others have walked here before, carrying their own heat through dark hours.

What mattered to me while writing was the idea that fear doesn’t need to be defeated — it needs to be burned off slowly, honestly, without drama. That kind of burning costs sleep. It costs ease. But it also teaches movement where damage once lived.

There’s a line in the poem that names this fire clearly for me:

It burns for all who stake their names on noon.

This isn’t about feeling intense. It’s about choosing clarity. Choosing to live where things are visible, even when that visibility asks more of you than hiding ever did.

The ending stays small on purpose. A pocketful of embers. Not victory. Not purity. Just enough heat to keep going. Enough to widen the world a little. Enough to loosen chains without pretending they were never there.

Fire doesn’t always roar.

Sometimes it simply stays.

And sometimes, that’s the bravest form it takes.

Read the full poem and analysis tomorrow 27th: https://alkonda.com/2026/01/27/fire/

© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite