1. O fire this evening
How bitterly cold is it, rise and awaken

2. O fire, my hands froze by it
Why didn’t you give warmth with the blaze!

3. Is there still life in you that flares up?
Is there still an ember that ignites?

4. Are you subdued? Or did the flame
Fold upon itself out of fatigue?

5. Shall I sit, O fire, alone here
Tending to your weakness and wait?

6. Take in your jaws these letters
If there is anything in them that satisfies!

7. Take them! Eat them! And don’t delay
For from them is the fuel and from you the roar

8. And O you who has words that
Contained all beautiful love!

9. Will you really keep to what is in them?
When did you ever keep anything? When!

10. And what do I expect from this prayer
And how you respond! Oh what a pity!

11. Are you hungry? Oh the gluttony
You spared nothing but embers or ashes

12. You craved all food, yet never
Tasted anything like the taste of ink?

13. And who has provisions for you? Nothing is left
For your tongue to lick or bite

14. O fire, please be patient
I will bring you all I possess

15. With my last sacred offering
Flowers that were delicate sheets

16. Flowers that adorn a bouquet
That had freshness but are now all dried up

17. Oh how they glistened on the branches
Flowers of splendor and ignition

18. With these two hands I gathered them
From every garden and every valley

19. Oh what brief life they had
And what youth has vanished

20. And what life like a dream that passed
Flashed like lightning then folded away!

21. Are you really out? Then your flames
Have nothing left, O fire, to gnaw

22. Is this a paper? No! For I
Grasp it with a trembling hand!

23. Was it just a yellowed, brittle
Piece of paper, unread

24. Containing the story of love in verses!
I held it dear under the pillow

25. I would kiss it two hundred times
Whenever my longing exposed it

26. Oh the gluttony! What do I see?
Your tongue is in fury and rage

27. Your embers from the fireplace
Nearly jump over the fence at me!

28. Go back! What does it intend?
Is there, O fire, nothing left to feed?

29. Is this a paper? Oh the blaze
And oh the ashes! How painful!