Night : black, cold and still.
Screams of silence so shrill
Ringing in my ears,
I walk beneath a starless sky.
Nary a breeze, whiff, or sigh.

I walk alone unseeing,
A weariness upon my being;
Each step a leaden weight.
I stumble and *****
For a path and a hope.

I descry afar a faint shimmer.
On the black canvass a red glimmer.
I set off, falling and rising.
The light multiplies as I draw near
And soft, strange whispers reach my ear.

A sea of flowers? A sea of fire?
Both. A sea of flowers of fire.
And a path in their midst leading
To an unearthly glow
Whence come the whispers low.

Delicate and terrible is the Fire Blossom.
It is beauty made fearsome,
Death wrought into the hem of life.
I walk along the path with care
Lest I end up in a fiery snare.

The whispers turn into voices,
whoops and laughs as people seem to rejoice.
Starved for company, I go tearing down the path
And seeing what lay before as in a waking sleep
I fall to my knees to bless the night and weep.

It is a market, inimitable in its splendour
With golden winged angels as vendors.
Not selling but bestowing.
Miracles and wonders as their wares,
there's joy, hope and life to spare.

People dancing with glee all around,
singing and making a merry sound.
The healed, the resurrected and the rejoined.
Their happiness and radiance beckons me,
And radiant I want to be.

Yet something stops me entering.
An unyielding, invisible screen barring
my path to those heavenly promises.
I cannot move forth into that light;
Behind and beside me, the quietus of the night.

Tears streaming down my face
I stand there, removed from that grace.
And as I stand and my heart aches
An angel looks at me, his head cocked.
And I know, I understand; I raise my fist and I knock.