[sral]

A lightning storm likely caused the natural disaster
that scattered all manner of organisms across the blackened savannah.
Man, as a rational animal, chose to survey
holding the flame of ingenuity in his smouldering gaze.
The glow of the nascent embers enticing him
presented a vibrant and new-found sense of enlightenment.
The frenzical fire flickered while choking the air
in smoke that unerringly saw wildlife drove from their lairs.
Hopelessly snared by ferocious forbears of hominid history
that stand, watching implicitly, on the periphery.
It’s a consummate victory for critical thought —
as we pick at the morsels of charred remains exhibiting warmth.
While more nutritious than raw meat, to make us really human
our brains will need more nutrients to aid our evolution.
This stage is key and crucial in our mental development
as increased energy benefits further help our intelligence.
The extent is unprecedented and fires up our outward observants
who now have a burning desire to learn how to preserve it.
Some found that in nurturing the roaring ashen cinders
they’ve a torch to carry in the dark and warmth to pass the winter.
But sure as man had kindled that first creative spark
the early days in our control of fire still seem a world away so far...



Light permeates the dark.
We’ve a new world in our hands,
learning how transferable heat meets its proverbial match.
Early encampments with hearths see us grasp primal stone-flinted weapons
as refined and honed as the ever-growing mind of Homo Erectus.
We find a socio-economic shift expands our horizons
man becomes wiser, language and fire help us adapt to the climate.
Even the barren environs of the Arctic see us planting our flag
in the form of fragmented clasts, ashes from plants and animal fats.
Neanderthal Man’s quizzical mind is larger
and distinctive hydrocarbons suggest we were habitual fire starters.
Tinder ignited sparks that made us advantageous
to favourable mating prospects before dating applications.
The naked flame that nature gave us had multiple benefits
each just as imperative to our cultures development.
We come to depend on it with such frequency that fire
seems as intertwined as leaves were to the vines needed for our pyre.
Our deepening desire to understand may have caused us some injuries
but our awe of its mystery changed the course of our history.
It was warmth in the winter seasons frost bitten cold -
our guiding light shining bright come time to migrate and conquer the globe.
It offered us hope in our darkest hour and became an achievement which
our civilisation would feature in the tale of Prometheus.
It changed how our people lived and shaped our existence
as we became as persistent as that first flame that we witnessed.
We both blazed our significant trails, rising triumphant at last
and engulfing all manner of things that stood in our paths.
The result of our chance encounter was Mother Nature’s doing
but her greatest true gift was the invention that made us human.