Remnants of a veld fire

IT’S the time of year for veld fires, burning spontaneously or under controlled supervision.

When you are on the edge of a suburb like I am, you can see them burning many kilometres away.

Last week, I observed a veld fire some 6km to the west. The billowing smoke that rose above it made it more impressive. It was visible from a vast distance.

The smoke rose vertically until it settled on a gentle breeze that wafted it eastwards over numerous suburban areas and possibly into the main town itself.

I looked up in the late afternoon sky and watched the finale of this spectacular show.

There in the calm, clear air were hundreds of little charcoaled leaflets doing their final death dance down to the ground.

They were like small blackbirds tumbling down to their eventual resting places.

Each carbon character had its own individual choreography; the quick-step, the foxtrot, the gavotte, the Charleston, the cha-cha and the samba, not to mention rock and roll. Some pieces were even pirouetting like ballerinas.

Each ember was a programmed artiste dancing with the air.

They finally settled down on my lawn like dead men telling no tales. Their stories were over.