Flaming Sparks

A twig creaks, a stone strikes,
Light glows bright as a spark leaps,
A flame by itself and yet not,
A flicker of light burning hot.
Snuffed out by the faintest breeze,
Yet in some corner under the trees,
Snug and shielded from the windy strife,
A spark that comes to its full life.
A dry leaf here, some paper close by,
Shrivel and blacken and vanish with a sigh,
Seen yet unseen it rises high,
A thin spiral of smoke in the sky.
Crackling twigs and animal calls,
Sound the alarm in the forest’s halls,
As tiny tongues of flickering red,
Lick the edge of a leafy bed.
With a crackle and a snap and a mighty roar,
Drowning the sound of a squealing boar,
A raging inferno blazes skyward,
A destructive vortex whirls forward.
Tree-tops burst aflame up high,
The fires feeding on everything dry,
The faint perfume froma flowerbed,
Goes up in smoke, lit dusky red.
The Flame of the Forest erupts in flame,
As the fires tear forth seeking new game,
Thunder roars as trees explode,
As, into steam turns the sap they hoard.
Smoke shrouds everything in sight,
As sheets of fire sweep through the night,
Moving up the slope of a hill,
Scorching and burning and feeding to their fill.
Hills in the night sparkle fiery gold,
All lit up like the war beacons of old,
A screaming banshee, the wind wails,
Fanning the flames, not letting them fail.
Fires burn all through the night,
Fading away only with the morning light,
Leaving behind many a blackened hill,
Smoldering gently in the morning chill.
Within the ashes, a spark you may find,
Its life depending on a winds fickle mind,
The right breeze in the right time,
And the tiny spark blazes forth into prime.
A twig creaks, a stone strikes,
Light glows unseen as the spark leaps,
A flame by itself and yet not,
A flicker of light, burning hot.....