The Fire

Tongues of flame are burning the nest. This is the smell of millet burning. Now it is the smell of the wooden walls in the fierce tongues of fire — the smell of firewood burnt, dry and green, in the village dusk. Now, though, now a wondrous wave of air turns through the sky with a faint blue smoke, slender and tall, — a soft, graceful dance — from within the ashes: my phoenix has risen...