In Los Angeles, after the ashes and the cinders the Firefighters stayed tall, emerging from the smoke, trying to save someone's home, facing the flames without giving an inch.
They do it not for the glory or for their pitiful pay...

A match can be so many things…
a phosphor head on a stick of wood
to light that burned out grandpa’s pipe
or light a candle as thanks in church.

It can be a expended forgotten small thing
lying on many an ashtray, yours too,
as a reminder of a second too many
holding it, two fingers you got burnt.

It can be treated as an innocent toy
for a child to set fire to a dry bush
and for the wind hiding somewhere
waiting its time to the flames ambush.

It can be the cause for that old home to
be destroyed in moments with a whoosh,
generation born and died between the walls,
only ashes again where that home stood.

Dante’s Inferno not from darkest sides
with flames engulfing the bad and the good,
obscuring the sun will the mighty smoke,
nobody can escape, even if they could.

Every time you happen to light a match
think of a Firefighter because I would,
igniting a fire can well burn you home
but it as well can burn the Firefighter’s too.

If for fear you do respect the fire, also
respecting the Firefighters you should,
because if you are trapped by the fire
you will ask God for one, you will do.