At night I close my eyes to see beauty,
and then in the morning I open them.
This is the essence of being awake—
to open your eyes to live your dreams, or
live without them because you don’t need them.

All the world’s beauty to appreciate
includes the beauty worth dreaming about,
and beauty about which I dared not dream.
There is beauty in darkness and in light—
who am I not to fall in love with it?

I’ve dreamt of beauty I could not describe,
but nor can I describe beauty I’ve seen.
To encounter beauty is irony—
it stops my heart and makes me feel alive,
touched and moved by ethereality.

Countless voices singing their little hymns
converge in a glorious harmony,
sing song lyrics that celebrate my whims
perform a symphony inside of me.

My heart conducts a most enchanted choir,
of booming bass sung to uplifting heights
and tenors sweeter than King David’s lyre,
a singer for each of my heart’s delights.

The joy within erupts in songs of praise
to a life hitting every perfect note,
and hearing what my inner chorus says
in melodies from places most remote.

All the conflicting voices had been wrong
until they all declared my love in song.

Pain is just an echo,
an effect that the deep
caverns cannot let go,
calling us in our sleep.

The reverberation
of pain we’d thrown away,
in determination,
tries to return and stay.

The injury calls back,
“Still here! You are not cured!”
And now under attack
of hurt not felt but heard.

Pain is just an echo,
of the hurt that left me.
I just need it to know
I’m in recovery.

The endless mercy of her love
is a sustaining salvation.
Her judgment of my feeble soul—
the most awesome revelation.  

Her love is a merciful hand
to the undeserved in despair.
She judged my woeful heart’s intent
and placed her absolution there.

She cannot love without mercy,
as the living depend on rain.
She judged my spirit perfectly.
Her kindness washed away my pain.

The mercy with which she loves me—
the greatest blessing one can give.
Her judgment’s better than my own,
it makes the world in which I live.

This spirit is a fire that consumes,
that burns the words to ashes and embers,
energy rises in beautiful plumes,
revealing what the hidden remembers.

Drawn to the call of the consuming flame,
awed by the wonder of the mystery,
once burned by the spirit, never the same,
charred remnants become light of history.

Nothing can be done to dampen this soul,
this burning life can not be extinguished,
flames growing rapidly out of control
calling out a new hope for the vanquished.

I am consumed, but I shall not be burned.
This kiln of passion has purified me.
Seared in my mind are the lessons I’ve learned.
Burning love no longer terrifies me.