Why I Say: Live Like Dust, Lit by Fire

If you’ve spent time with my meditations or blog, you may have noticed the way I sign off:

"Live like dust, lit by fire. Nicho"

Nicholas Fournie, 2025

This phrase isn’t just a poetic flourish. It’s a thread pulled from the deeper fabric of my worldview, one woven from elemental kinship, sacred impermanence, and the quiet power of presence. It hints at a poem, yes. But more than that, it gestures toward a theology. A way of being. A resistance to the illusion of separation.

In a culture obsessed with permanence and productivity, I return again and again to the truth that we are made of earth. Of ash and wind. Of spirit moving through matter. To live like dust lit by fire is to live awake to the fragile blaze of existence, to leave behind warmth, not legacy.

Rather than explain it further, I offer you the poem itself.

Dust, Lit by Fire

Bone-light wind blows through gravel

where nothing remembers its shape.

Ash settles in the folds of bark,

A moth flares, then folds again.

You came from minerals,

settled into wet clay

warmed by something

older than memory.

You took breath,

you stood up,

you walked,

leaving heat on the stones.

Not a torch.

Not a blaze.

More like ember-logic,

a slow combustion.

You speak and the air bends.

You grieve and something clean

rises through your chest.

What touches you

is what made you,

and what made you

won’t stay.

So let your weight mark the ground.

Say nothing you don't mean.

Burn until the smoke becomes a blessing.

You’re only passing through.

while you’re here

leave a trail

of warmth

and silence.