Fire appears to be a symbol intimately coupled with both life and death. Life is a kind of fire, burning hot for a time and then dissipating. By life, I do not mean just individual life, but all life. Physically (simplistically) of course, we are just vessels for burning oxygen and harnessing the energy so obtained. Humans are just tiny embers of the grand fiery life that is Earth, fuelled by the sun, which will one day die. Have you ever thought of God as a fire? Not just in wrath, but in the same way that life is fire, but (hopefully) eternal. Out of this fire comes our own fire, both spiritual (think holy spirit) and physical. I think these are the kinds of disparate thoughts that went through my head as I wrote the following poem quite a few years ago:
The Fire The Fire burns and rages with warmth and soft scorching heat from an eternal omnipotence brought forth in life, and death and life in death prosperity, despair love and punishment The blistering glow releases tiny embers like little fire-balloons that fall to the Earth and imitate a million times tinier the power, and glory of their Father and quickly die leaving little grey bodies that are stamped into the ground
Meditations of Lambchop 