Fire is colored by unspent fuel,
carbon, blood, and sinew;
the hottest flame
can’t be seen
and burns the deepest in you.
This poem is dedicated to my fellow Bahá’í brothers and sisters throughout the Middle East, but specifically those in Iran and Yemen, who suffer immoral and unjustified imprisonment and loss of basic human rights for their religious beliefs. Religion should be a force of love, not oppression or condemnation.
It is a re-post of the first poem I shared on this site in November, 2012.
Thank you for reading Certitude. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.
The photograph was taken one cold winter night at a winter festival held at Old Sturbridge Village, an historical living museum. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.
john
Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge, https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.
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