Eric Wayne Key
The Flame That Through the Red Clay Drove the Man
In Memory of Gregory R Warren
May 19, 1961 – May 28, 2025
The flame that through the red clay drove the man
rose from the hush of Northern Alabama,
where lint-stung mills turned dusk to breathless sleep,
and boys were carved from dust and heat and lack.
In that still town of broken cotton belts,
we ran—barefoot and laughing—toward the edge,
two shadows bound by rust and need,
by hunger, by wonder, by something unnamed.
You were the quieter of the two.
I remember your eyes before I remember your voice—
steadfast, absorbing, knowing more than you said.
You listened like stone listens to rain.
You held your pain like a man holds fire—
not to banish it, but to warm the world around him.
Even then, you carried the weight of others
without ever asking for return.
The wind that bent the pine trees north of home
drove you into flame—
not the kind that consumes,
but the kind that saves.
For more than forty years, you wore the coat,
the badge, the burn.
A firefighter not only by name
but by every inch of your will.
You stepped into houses others fled,
into days that never ended clean.
You gave your breath for those who had none left.
You stayed. You stayed until the smoke cleared.
You stayed until they were safe.
When the firehouse faded behind you,
you took to the open sky—
a camera in one hand,
a steering wheel in the other,
chasing light down long back roads
the way we used to chase the stars.
And still, you gave—
to your children, your grandchildren, your kin.
The same hands that once held hose and hammer
now lifted birthday candles and cradled tired heads.
But there was another silence in you too.
A silence that no one could name.
A shadow that no lens could capture.
You never wanted anyone to worry.
Never wanted the world to turn its gaze.
So when the time came—
you slipped between the seconds
like a breath held too long.
No sirens, no goodbyes.
You vanished on your own terms,
as you lived—without fuss, without fail.
Now I walk the edge of memory,
hearing you in the hush between my thoughts.
You are not gone.
You are wind in the long grass,
heat in the summer road,
a figure just ahead on the trail.
The flame that through the red clay drove the man
drives me still.
Addedum:
Go not with sorrow—go as flame,
Who chose the hour, who kept his name.
My friend, my brother, ever free—
The road rolls on ahead of me.
