A Scarlet Flower in a Calm Night Sky

The road lay before me
Dark, cloaked in shadows
Punctuated by a few eerie streetlights
What dangers might befall me here?
Robbery? Kidnap? Murder even?
Those shadows thrust into my mind,
My soul consumed by fear.
Every odd form an unknown assailant
Every step my possible last
The world wheeled around me in dizzying paranoia
And stopped.


A single tear-drop of light surges into the heavens
A scarlet streak rocketing upwards
Purposeful in its self-destruction
Glorying in its ephemeral beauty.
And there before me it bloomed
That single scarlet flower of all-consuming flame
Its existence quenched in one fiery instant
An instant that lasted an eternity
A cascade of sparks descended
And all was as it was.

But something had subtly changed.
Was it the world? No
It was me, my sight
And through my sight, the entire world.
A raw emotion swept my spirit,
It did not deny the existence of my fears
But defeated them,
And in their defeat, nullified them.
I exalted in this glorious pleasure,
Soaring amidst the clouds
Revelling in a field of scarlet flowers
Viewing the pitiful earth below
And the blazing midnight sun above.

This rapture is truly like none other.
It is not the joy that sparks, blazes and
Dies, a fleeting intense joy.
Nor is it that happiness which begins as a whisper
In your head, and a tickle in your heart,
That builds, and climaxes with ebullience.
It is that bliss that has no beginning and no end,
It lies always, waiting within to be released.
It pervades your mind and soul and rests
In the centre of your being, a warm grip
Nourishing and elevating.
The world could end, the skies be rent
Every man could die, every woman could weep,
And the earth could dissolve in an ocean of salt-tears.
All knowledge could be unlearnt and all belief shattered.
And my body might die and my bones crumble to dust
But for this joy,
This skeleton of pure, unbridled illogical bliss.
This spring of life, its waters, my new blood.

And so I continue my walk,
The world destroyed, dying,
But never having been more alive.