Liam Acornley (year one) - The Ember Cures all

For poetry and poetics I wanted to go out of my comfort zone and attempt to create something not only unique, but something that would present itself as a challenge and as such I wrote a poem consisting of Chengyu; a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, which always consists of four characters or words. To make it harder still I decided each line bar the last stanza must have a reference to fire.
This is the result:

"

The ember cures all.

From pyre, to blaze,
for everything’s within flames!
Burn away your ignorance;
night becomes dawn,
winter's curse melts away,
plague purged by flame.

Misunderstanding sacred fire’s use,
ignorant of true embers,
leaves many, burnt, singed!
But fire lives on,
though man may scald;
captured in the flames.

A trial by fire,
hot coals without end,
chained in searing heat,
come and be burned;
wrapped in crimson inferno…

You sear and singe,
fate…has been kindled,
your flame in motion,
your ashes float away…

Phlogiston is eternal,
to be only fuel,
you feed the flame,
but money to burn!

Death has…..cold…..fingers
Icy flicker of wind,
a lesson in death?
My fire is quenched?
still the same spark...

..
Yet I go out.
"

The narrative of this follows how a branch of humanity began to use fire for everything, and began to revere it as almost a god; fire became their life. Yet as it became stronger and spread they were soon consumed by it and it too, became their death.