The Briefest History of Fire

We spend our lives waiting for the sudden rupture. A spark against the black. We are taught that permanence is the goal, that to build is to last, yet the things that stay with us are the things that vanish the moment they arrive. A flare in the night, a breath held in the cold, the sound of a door closing in an empty house. These are not losses. They are the only honest way to measure time. We look for the explosion, the brilliance, the noise, but the truth is always in the smoke that follows. It drifts, it thins, it becomes the air we breathe. We are made of these small, cooling embers. We are the aftermath of a light that refused to stay. What remains when the heat finally leaves the sky?

Ronnie Glover has captured this fleeting descent in his image titled Blast Off. It reminds me that even the loudest moments eventually return to silence. Do you find comfort in the fading?