As we perhaps find ourselves rocked from our writing with the onslaught of new stimuli, new demands, new interests, it could well be challenging to keep the writing fires burning. I’ll step in and say that today’s word is FIRE.
Into Second Semester…and Thursday’s word
Posted on February 14, 2008 by bgblogging
My sweet daughters, both of fiery spirit
Like their mother, love to argue for argument’s sake.
They fly to flame. No, rather, they put bellows to cinder.
They can’t help themselves. In some places, it is unseemly.
Surprising.
Cruel even.
In our home it is high art.
We have, after all, been brought up to spar
as though lighting the warming evening fire–
All of us on our Irish side
On the historian’s side–
Valuing the slow burn of a perfectly
Wrought argument
As it throws sparks
Across the table at hapless
Guest, sibling or
parent
Igniting idea, conviction,
passion.
[...] Fire Published February 14, 2008 100 words , Writing Today’s 100-word topic: Fire [...]
I’ve never lit a match, and I’ve never told anyone who has not responded with some sort of disbelief. It was just vaguely odd until about ninth grade, at which point it became a tradition. I could really do it now. Just hold it and strike, not so hard, not so dangerous. My 5-year-old cousin can do it. My sister taunts me with it. My friends want to be my first audience. I can’t, but not because it’s lighting a match anymore. I’ve never made fire. I’m really used to looks of disbelief. And I like having something to say.
Julio Cortazar wrote ‘Todos los Fuegos del Fuego.’ It reminds me how fire can be happiness, warmth, passion, anger.
Optimists and hypocrites tell me that ‘donde hubo fuego cenizas quedan.’ I want to hear it, but it’s not a good thing. My pockets are full of ash, my desk is full of ash, my couch is filled with ash. Damn fire.
I knew two smokers in love. They broke up. Their discourse diminished to ‘tienes fuego?’ followed by a search for a lighter, a toss, a catch, and a vestigial flicker of the fire that used to be there, but is gone.