Mankind's experiments with fire...

One day they struck together two wild stones.

Fire, they invented. 

Or discovered it may be.

Then, one day, they called it sacred.

And performed yajnas, 
from birth to marriage to death to eternity.

Then,they began,to burn in it a fellow species.
Fire, they claimed,
would lead to heaven,both the dead and the 'sati'.

Today,they know fire.
A chemical reaction producing smoke.
and warming up the globe.

Whether with firearms,
which kids in our cities play with.
or those by militants and armies,in a Ukraine, Syria, Mosul or Tikrit.

Paradoxically.
On this warming up globe,

In this world on fire,raging red.
We're all getting colder,
with indifference or hatred.

As I shiver again, another cold night,
on this warming up globe,
and with every sound of the gun.

I think of, the fire
You once lit up on my forehead, one evening
when you drew up on it, the sun.

Which fire lives forever,
and which perishes with this globe and me.
Is for mankind to see.
So, You want which one?

photograph borrowed from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/126100858286543615/