Embers

Strangely beautiful in its simplicity,
a bright orange fire in a cold winter night,
only cardboard ignited to eliminate trash,
the night so young,
all of six o'clock,
the familiar eerie feel,
a day done so soon,
never realized approaching doom.

I walk away,
flames strong and growing,
turn back,
a pop and flurry of orange sparks floating in the still night air,
and I realize,
for the first time in my life,
I have witnessed the exact moment,
that a fire dies.

It need not to be tended,
it need not air breathed into it,
simply it had nothing more to burn,
accomplished,
gone,
forgotten.