My House is Burning

350 years since the Great Fire of London

The night is cold but the air is hot. The water is black but the flames are reflected red, yellow, orange, on the surface. Boat bound I watch my city burn, the smoke rising to the heavens. There are no more stars.

     Before, there were screams and shouts, now there is only the crackling and crashing of falling, burning timber and the distant wailing of women. The men are silent, they can only watch as everything they had is slowly taken from them. The sun will rise three times or more before this blaze goes out, but what can rise from so many ashes.

     My house is burning. Why? But there are some questions that can’t be answered. Sometimes the only thing to do is cry together, or stand together, or watch and wonder together, and talking can come later, or not at all. My house is burning, but my land remains, and we will raise yet greater wonders.

Pic. from the 1666 commemoration in London this month