Kindled from Inside

Walls,
caked and cracked
with dried up dreams,
windowpanes,
cloudy grey
in broken trusts,
and five doors,
numb with rage,
cannot open to the world.

In the dank, moldy hallway,
I wring my spectral stairs
to the eerie tick of the grandfather clock
--a time-bomb on a death-watch--
as sinuous ghosts invade
my every corner and crevice
and drift through the silt of
hoarded years,
looking for a sign of life
before the calendar dies.

For fear of this dark,
I let the wind
break in and catch me
with a spark:
          “Who are you?”


Kindled, I arise
so bright, so alive,
shaking off good or evil,
letting every sorrow fall
to the blazing ardor within,
so the shell,
liberated from being just a dwelling,
burns its callousness,
and the heart
is cleansed through
spontaneous combustion,
to bare an imperishable spirit.