“We run snow through the fire gates,” is just about as excellent a metaphor for life that I have ever heard.

And it works on levels that get so deep, it’s almost a whole poem just by itself (although it does work really well with the rest of the poem as well, and just shows that you are an excellent writer, or most likely, an excellent “rewriter“ since I’ve found that the best poets are actually those who spend a lot of time cutting down editing and rewriting.)

The extended metaphor is the concept of dashing through the fire with something useful that we want on the other end—being your “snow.” Once we get through sometimes we still have all the snow left. We have have everything that we wanted to bring through and will have accomplish our goals.

Other times the snow is completely melted, the fire having done it’s number on the frozen crystals, and all we have left is whatever water our choice of container can carry.

But can we really say “all we have left is...water?“

It’s water!

Water is as useful as now, oftentimes more useful.

So even when we think we’ve failed trekking towards some unknown destination, really, we’ve still succeeded beyond all logical expectations (we shouldn’t even LIVE after going through real or metaphorical fire gates, let alone accomplish a secondary task).

And it’s because we’ve done something.

We’ve existed in the world and carried meaning through for ourselves and for everyone else.

And all that doesn’t even touch on the fact that you didn’t just say fire, but you said “fire *gates.”

It would’ve worked perfectly fine and been beautiful enough just with “fire” but the addition of the concept of gates is breathtaking because of all the assumptions built into the concept of gates composed of fire.

Are they closed when we’re running through them? Are the gates opened, with the flames bursting out, trying to destroy both our cargo and our very selves? How were they opened? How does one open a fire gate?

I’m not asking these literally. I’m bringing them up in the context of the literary world you’ve created, because when you ask them, they perfectly line up with the extended metaphor your poem catalyzed, and present a lot of the deepest questions about life, but in a form that can make them easier to grasp without falling into despair over life’s metaphysics being ultimately unknowable in their complexity.

Thank you for this poem, and that line in particular. You’ve made my day.