The Fire of the Dove

A forest stood once, lush and green,
a towering wall of budding trees,
along a stream of rushing water clear.
Bubbling,
sparkling,
catching the sun's rays it ran,
laughing,
toward the world's end,
giving life to the roots
of the growing trees,
filling them
with the joy of gazing
on the face of the Sun.

Ah! Beautiful was that wood
in the days when Time herself
was young, and cursed not with old age
the newborn Earth.
But loveliness, hard gained,
is much too easily lost -
A single spark,
impregnate with smoldering flame
finds rest in the heart of the wood.
Nursed by the fallen leaves,
it grows,
flickering,
shedding a strange light
in the dark of midnight.
It creeps eerily across the ground,
fogging the air with hazy smoke.

Alas! When the stars are blotted from the sky,
Where shall we look for hope?
Time is lost, obliterated,
in the reeking,
smarting,
choking haze of smoke.
We cannot go on;
we stand immovable -
the charred and burning trunks
of once-lovely trees.
Engulfed in flames, we cry out
in tones of hopeless longing and despair -
Lost.
Withered and dry as dust
is the river that gave us life -
Our own flames, blown to a fury
by unbridled raging winds
dried up the pool.
Blackened and lifeless,
we crumble,
tasting the bitterness of ashes,
signifying death.
Is there no hope at all
To conquer this despair?

But hark! The air,
till now filled with dying cries,
echoes a strange chord,
as if the stars were singing.
And from the heart of the morning star
that flames, brilliant above the rest,
a white dove soars.
On pinions swift as light it comes,
hearkening to our dying cry,
plunging, in unshakeable purpose
toward the earth.
Love drives it
speeding its wings -
Love for the beauty once in the wood,
Love for the glory that it had and lost,
Love and pity for the sorrow and pain:
A divine dove's tears for the broken heart.

One instant it hovers above the flames,
and suddenly time comes back again:
An eternal instant
that goes echoing down the ages,
recurring forever (as the ripples rebound
from the pebble that's dropped in the brook),
marks the union
of the dove and the sea of fire.
Is hope lost once again?
Do we not see the dove inflamed
go down with our own ashes?

Ah look! The dove!
It falls,
cloaked in our own wind-driven flames
of unrelenting fury and passionate thought.
Yet as it dies with us, the flames are changed,
turned by the white-hot heart
that blazes in its breast.
No longer now
are they destructive petty flames
that threaten lives,
destroy, and yet,
devoid of all nobility, give not
the light and beauty of
these new mysterious flames.
Transformed, white-hot,
like the fire of the dove itself,
these flames go reaching to the stars,
painting the sky with gold and red.
It's splendor grows,
Flashing,
Sparkling,
in myriad meteors.
Naught can withstand such heat;
we are consumed,
Lost -
but not now to despair.

Love!
Which consumes but does not destroy!
Love!
Which causes pain more keen
than ever did its lack!
Love!
Which alone brings with its pain
the splendor of hopeful joy!
Love!
Which redeems us at the last!

One are we now with the fire of the dove!
The flames,
leaping,
soaring to the sky,
like so many glowing wings
have made us one
with those first pinions,
challenging,
calling us
to fly to the heights of the stars,
and with desire and love
that flames and grows,
we go.
And in that instant,
witness the leaping fire
cloven,
as from the flames arises
the figure that is our hope.
The fires take on new shape,
and we consumed
rise with the dove in form renewed.

In splendor and in brilliance forth it comes:
The Phoenix,
in whom all fires of love are one,
and in whom all that once was lost
is found again,
increased ten-thousand-fold.