Tea lights. Paper lanterns. Candles. Anything that casts a golden flame. A fireplace, burning wood. A campfire, with embers flying up and becoming ash. Or the afterglow of fireworks. Even the flare of a lit cigarette in a dark room, shining where a face has been and then gone. Old fashioned light, older than houses, older than time, when time didn't know what it was.

We find it, even now, even as we evolve to the next subset of creation, we find fire. It's glow softens each face, lends a subtle tan to pale skin, rejuvenates a different shade of sleeve and collar than we are used to. It deepens our smile and the lines in our face. Its small source drowns out the rest of the world, our backs, the very half of our bodies that aren't near enough. We are never to old for fire.

We will find it and search for it after all the beauty of nature is swallowed up. Even in the harshest apocalyptic premonition, we will all likely warm ourselves with fire, when there is nothing left to burn. We will embrace its uneven warmth, its uneconomical hunger for fuel, its power and its grace.

Just as we will all return to dust no matter what diverse spiritual beliefs divide us, so will we all come and return to old fashioned light.

Aki no kure
hi ya tomosan to
toi ni kuru

An autumn eve;
She comes and asks,
"Shall I light the lamp?"

-Etsujin

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