Edinburgh Poetry Magazine –

"Fire" by Emily Arnold-Fernández

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Title image shows a picture of a man on a hill overlooking Edinburgh.

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Published January 15th, 2025

Fire

by Emily Arnold-Fernández

The first gift: mundane,
fascinating, used for death
rituals and cooking.

We speak in fire.
Our blazing bonfires
call forth fertility or

cry warning. I burn,
a lover pleads, a poet's star
proclaims, a corpse sighs.

Some say fire is alive,
by certain definitions.
It eats, and grows, and

propagates. In California, we
settlers fear the fire season:
Pain, loss, death, heartbreak.

For our Ohlone hosts,
fire was the land's
rebirth: Sacred renewal.

But they too had burn
remedies. And we too strike
sparks: In darkness, light.

Prometheus, our first
luminary, thought it worth
Dying endlessly.

Softly, in stillness,
we bring it into being:
Warmth, light, cheer, calm.

Around the fire, we tell
the story: Prometheus
thought us all –

settlers, first peoples, all
humanity – worthy of dying
each day for eternity.


About the Poet
Emily Arnold-Fernández resides in Portnahaven, Isle of Islay, Scotland.
Read the poet's biography on Emily Arnold-Fernández's Artist Page.

This poem is included in Poetry World #11, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.

Previously published in Edinburgh Poetry Magazine:
Farewell Juniper Green

by Stuart McFarlane

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- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
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