The Field That Forgot the Fire
There was a field once, endless and golden,
where wheat moved like a slow-moving tide,
each stalk bending, rising, breathing,
as if the earth itself had a pulse—
calm, steady, peaceful.
The sun melted across the horizon,
pouring warmth over the tall grass,
soaking the husks in honey-colored light.
The wind slipped through the stalks,
not rushing, not demanding,
only existing—
a quiet hush through the leaves,
a slow exhale against the skin.
It smelled of harvest, of sun-warmed grain,
of earth, full and rich beneath the weight of seasons,
of rain that kissed rather than conquered.
Light pooled in waves across the husks,
a golden shimmer that stretched for miles.
Nothing was caged.
Nothing was waiting to break.
Then the fire came.
Not all at once—
first, a hush, a single breath of heat,
a flicker curled at the edges of the dry stalks,
a whisper of smoke threading between the stems,
soft as dusk settling over the land.
Then the hunger awoke.
The first flame lifted its head,
curling its fingers along the husks,
turning gold to ember, ember to black.
The air thickened, heavy and wrong,
heat pressing against the sky until it buckled.
Then came the sound.
A crack.
A hiss.
A splintering pop.
As if the fire were chewing its way forward,
devouring breath, swallowing wind.
The heat struck in waves, searing, blinding,
pulling the air from the lungs of the land.
The sky thickened, swallowed by smoke,
the wind turned frantic,
spinning embers like stars flung against the dark.
The fire slithered forward—
never rushing, never desperate—
only sure.
Only certain.
And where it moved, the field shrieked.
The husks curled inward,
blackened, broke,
collapsed into the waiting ash.
And when it was done, there was no sound.
But the fire did not leave.
It buried itself deep,
coiled beneath the ashes,
breathing low in the roots,
waiting for the weight of time to bring weakness,
waiting for the wind to return and give it reason to rise.
For a time, the land did not move.
Did not breathe.
Did not remember what it was before.
But ember is not the same as empty.
Beneath the hush, something stirred—
a thread of green, buried deep,
a root unburned,
a seed that had never stopped waiting.
And one morning, when the sun stretched its hands
over the ruin, over the hush,
the first blade of green reached back.
The fire stirred.
It pressed heat against the tender stem,
whispered of ruin, of endings,
of how easy it would be to fall again.
It curled through the roots like fingers,
clung to the memory of the burning,
aching for one last breath of surrender.
But the field did not bow.
Did not listen.
Did not burn again.
It grew.
The earth drank deep,
pulling rain into its wounds,
until the air was thick with the scent of renewal,
until dawn pressed soft beads of dew along the leaves,
until the wind found its song again,
stirring the green that had returned
not as it was before—
but as something greater.
The fire lashed out, a final grasp—
but the roots had grown too thick,
the soil too firm,
the green too wild for it to take hold.
And when it tried to breathe,
it found no air.
The field did not return.
It became.
And the fire, long gone but never willing,
choked on its own hunger,
curled into the quiet,
and was nothing at all.
- AVB