Exothermic - Dec 13 2025

 

Exothermic

Dec 13 2025

The fire feeds on itself.

Burning wood releases heat

and heat begets heat

as more wood burns.

Which means enough oxygen

and all the trees in the world

would burn

at the touch of a single match.

So beware what you start

take care with stray sparks.

But instead of catching like that

I watch it slowly burn down 

the last ember blink out.

In boy scouts

we learned the one-match fire.

And later, no-match;

beginning with friction and punk,

then tinder

kindling

twigs,

bigger branches

whole trunks.

I was young, and thought I’d set the world on fire

illuminate

in the brilliant future 

that surely was mine. 

But now, older and wiser

the fire is sputtering

and I’m down to my final match.

There was no contagion

of exothermic fuel

and all the trees still stand,

the oxygen

is still waiting to ignite.

While I wrap myself in a blanket

and slide my chair

closer to the stove,

numb feet

eking out what’s left of its warmth.

My woodpile is dwindling,

and the wind

whistling through the eaves

portends a long cold night.

This poem started out with a vague idea about an exothermic reactions as an example of cascading events (like climate change!), confident it would lead somewhere more interesting than preachy or didactic. One thought was how the cosmically improbable balance of the planet’s geography and ecology permits not only life, but the temperate and beautiful earth (as it is now, even if for most of geological history this place was hardly benign!) that we take for granted:  overstep a delicate tipping point, and it all ends in a runaway train. As in too little oxygen for air-breathing animals like us to exist; or a little too much, and it’s all consumed in a fireball. As I said, a chain of events cascading out of control. 

But my subconscious must have taken over, and the poem ended up about approaching the end of a life of mediocrity and wasted potential. Sorry to be such a downer!