Ashes

I didn’t see the fire,
only the ashes.
They told me to be glad-
to be thankful
I didn’t witness the dramatic event,
only its repercussions.

But how do you grieve
for something you never saw?
How do you mourn flames
that danced unseen,
their beauty and destruction
hidden beneath a veil of smoke?

They told me, be glad.
Be glad I didn’t hear the roar of it,
the crackle of dreams splintering,
the cries swallowed by heat.
But these ashes whisper to me.
They tell their own story,
gray shadows of a life
that was here
and then wasn’t.

They think it’s easier this way-
to miss the chaos,
to inherit only the calm after.
But these remnants are heavy,
coated in soot and silence,
their weight pressing into my lungs
like the ghost of a breath
I’ll never exhale.

I want to know the fire.
I want to see where it began,
how it leapt,
wild and unrepentant,
turning everything it touched
into a different kind of truth.

Because in the flames,
there was movement,
there was rage and life,
destruction birthing something raw.
But here, in the aftermath,
there’s only stillness,
the kind that suffocates,
a graveyard of what could have been.

They told me,
You’re lucky.
But I don’t feel lucky.
I feel like a historian
without the war,
a poet without the heartbreak.
I feel the ache of what’s missing,
the story told
in whispers and fragments.

I didn’t see the fire.
But the ashes,
they cling to me anyway.
And I wonder,
if I had seen the flames,
would I have been consumed,
or would I have risen,
a phoenix with wings
made of embers?

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

An interesting question you pose here. It seems to me that there is a void. If you had seen the fire, it may make you feel that you know and have experienced the full story. The ashes of anything is only half the picture. I’m thankful I didn’t see the flames that incinerated my mum. That would have been all consuming. It was difficult enough scattering her ashes. If this is about someone who died as a result if a fire, then that would have been horrifying to experience. Thank you for posting.