Roughly formed ceramic objects on a wooden surface. Spheres, a broken cup, and in the center a small unglazed piece with minimal markings of a face cut into it.

Fire leaves its soul where it steps
clinging to its spent fuel
shadows in its wake as it follows
its hunger and the dry wind

what follows fire but us
and flowers that dot the charred earth
after long slumbering in the soil
rising only at the scent of smoke

Black and white still from Akira Kurosawa samurai film. Toshiro Mifune eats rice out of a ceramic bowl with brush strokes; he is inside of a wooden shack, with an older man sitting to his right, scowling.
Photograph of the inside of an old house with no furniture. In the center is a fireplace, with aparent smoke stains above it. Plaster is falling down around it onto the wooden floor.