Very few things are inflammable
Very few things are safe from fire
And it only takes 451 degrees Fahrenheit to fully scorch a book
Paperback, hardcover, leather, cloth covers
Back to back, from the glue of the spine to the edges of the pages
But what can be saved in a fire?
Perhaps the clothes on your back or the bag on your shoulder
Maybe a smartphone, a ring of keys
If you’re lucky, a folio of documents
But would you save a book from a fire?
“You can always buy a new one!” one may say in ill-placed sympathy
“There might be a digital version?” another would add curiously
“Your library could have a copy,” some may interject objectively
“It’s just a book,” many would say bluntly
How privileged have we become to assume this so readily?
Though a blessing for literature to be at the palm of our hands
To line the bookshelves of every local bookstore
To be even compressed into our smartphones
Is it really just a book?
Is it really just a book if entire pages have been altered and rephrased?
Is it really just a book if copies were sold under the secrecy of moonlit alleys?
Is it really just a book if authors have been killed for what lies between cover and binding?
Is it really just a book if piles have met a fiery fate under the rule of the close-minded?
Is it really just a book, at the end of it all?
Literature is not merely word of mouth or the letters within a blank page
But the thoughts, emotions, and truths of those who carry the weight of the quill
To torch such realities from this earth is a fate crueler than death
To be forgotten not just in essence but in memory
Not even the dead can speak of what once was and what could have been
Very few things are safe from the flames
Not even the human body is safe from a fiery hearth
Such ephemerality is expected from the physical, the temporary, the mortal
What remains in the ashes can be replaced
But the lasting brand it leaves cannot be erased, even in death
Though embers and ashes may burn and scorch
What is reborn from these ashes carries on what has been destroyed
For to be reborn, one must first face the sun
To face the truth only found in death alone
And from the ashes, then, can we begin again
