Fascinating Fire

Fierce, fascinating fire
A hero's flame
A dragon tamed
A flickering, flashing song
Intense, triumphant joy

Within the cauldron--cheers
Within the engine--power
And on the hearth it warms
Fierce, fascinating fire

But let it break the boundary wall
Trip a delicate, wavering toe
Out onto the dry, brown grasses
A city wails
Their effort fails
An all-destroying roar
And the smell of death and ashes!

For the Sunday Scribblings Prompt: Fire!

Fiery Monday

I drove to work on Monday toward a fiery sky and discovered that I had thirty minutes to spare, since I had forgotten we had a teacher's meeting at 8:00 and school was starting an hour late. So, ignoring the few minutes I could have used to do some intensive planning for the day, I promptly joined the cook, a good friend of mine, to walk about three blocks over and investigate a burning house. There were fire-fighting vehicles parked all along the street, and, to my surprise, I recognized most of the firemen who were cleaning up the last remains of the burned-out, building, which, fortunately, had been vacant when the fire erupted early that morning. Some were former students of mine.

"Sure", they said, "You can walk a little closer. Mind the hoses."
So we approached and snapped a couple of pictures of the ruins, the smoke, the embers, and the heroes.