Where Heat Still Lives

At the end of the night, the fire learns to whisper.

What once shouted with resin-crack and orange tongues

now bends inward, a monk at prayer.

I watch it the way one watches a door

close for the final time—

not slammed, not locked,

just eased shut by a careful hand.

This flame has been many things.

It was a herald, lifting sparks like messengers

into the dark, insisting we stay,

insisting there was more warmth to be had.

It was a mouth, devouring the past—

old letters, broken chairs, the splintered year—

turning grief into light we could stand beside.

Now it thins.

Blue appears at the base, the color of departure.

The logs sigh, collapsing into themselves,

each ember a small red memory

trying not to forget its shape.

Ash gathers like snow that has learned

the names of everything it covers.

Endings are not explosions.

They are this: a dimming, a patience.

A final curl of smoke writing a sentence

no one can read twice.

The flame does not mourn itself.

It simply loosens its grip on brightness

and lets the dark have its turn.

When it is gone, there is still heat in the stones.

There is the smell of what was changed.

There is a circle of faces, briefly illuminated,

carrying the fire inward,

where it will burn smaller, quieter,

until it becomes a story,

until even the story cools,

and something new asks for a spark.