I had wrestled fire the day long
But now the sun was gone
And as the night came on, fire grew.
The full moon watched to see what I would do.

And nothing went as I had planned.
The element of fire was out of hand
And hungered for the earth, and ate the air.
The full moon watched to see how I would fare.

I made a wish for rain to fall;
The smutted sky ignored my call.
The flames ate trees and darkness, and grew tall.
The full moon watched above it all

Until the fire was brought complete
To perfect light and perfect heat:
All that was left to gain was my defeat.

I fed the flames myself, and was consumed
Under the gaze of the curious moon.

Image: collage of King Fire – Stumpy Meadows, by USFS (Region 5) (in the public domain as a U.S. Government work), and Moonscape by Flickr user Carl Milner (published under a Creative Commons  Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license).