you fly too close to the fire, my dear

while i

can only watch and sink helplessly into the sea.

sirens blare and shutters close,
we sit calmly in our humble abode
until we smell the smell I’ve smelled
a thousand times and going strong.
we joke and skip idly around the stairs
in a fashionably orderly manner,
like in an empty amusement park.

“the fire smells good”, says someone,
and i nearly choke at the absurdity,
but i have to agree, it smells like
nostalgia, the plumes of charred plastic
filaments, remnants of 3d printers
bringing me back to better days.

as the chaos rolls along in the background,
we order truffle pasta from the vending machine,
giggle at the firemen who lost their way
and watch the sorry-excuse of a smoke
trailing away into the blindingly blue sky
as the exhausted sirens blare once again.

I see a lot of paper on your desk.
Books full of laws.
The goal of a law is to provide
safety and justice for those for whom it was written.
Those are good laws on that paper.

But if you are just going to sit there,
doing nothing,
if you are not going to take action and
make those laws and goals a reality,
then they’re nothing but a waste of paper.

Paper is a resource – it can be used as kindling.
The goal of a fire is to provide
safety, justice, shelter, food, warmth.
Dead paper is more useful as kindling.
If you care about safety –
if you care about justice at all –
you will either act on these laws, or burn them.

Don't be a prisoner of your past
Like a fallen yellow leaf
With no song, no fire

Be like the enchanting nature
That celebrates life with
The new dawn, new sun rise
Birds melodies, blue skies
Smiling flowers, green grass
Fresh air, dancing butterflies
Twinkling stars
And evolving moon

Hussein Dekmak