To Rise in Fire

For you, fellow traveler in the dark—fellow searcher, fellow dreamer:

Part I

How long the walk,

and how dark the road!

It makes me think

that my soul is abandoned to itself,

forgotten by the drinking buddies

of a long-gone day,

when I loved a tender tigress

and believed in this hypocritical society.

Damned demons spit their acid

on my wounds,

infecting them with hate for the past

and fear for the future—

yes, because all the wisdom of a man

can suddenly vanish

before two beautiful, evil eyes.

This is the irony of life:

we delve deep into study

only to learn our weakness.

Part II

Don’t you feel the earth’s wind?

It comes to take you

with its hopes and vain glory.

So run—run away from it!

Keep on learning,

keep on searching

the secret that many sought

but none have found.

For there is no supreme secret,

no mystery of life—

it is only human nature

that needs to give itself reasons

where none exist.

Part III

Ages live in words,

and as far as the sky stretches,

so my mind wanders,

there and beyond,

just to sing a song.

“Fool,” you say,

“and useless!”—

but fantasy is what gives

my life its meaning:

something indescribable,

eternal.

I am ready to sacrifice

my entire soul to it,

today and tomorrow.

Part IV

Seated in this dark library,

reading and thinking

by the comfort of a candle,

far from the chaos

of the outside world,

everything seems

ancient and true,

filled with knowledge.

Images rise from the fog of the past—

revivals of moments and emotions

summoned by turning pages;

great men exist now

only through tiny black letters.

Is this life, then?

Are we all born only to die—

to end as empty words

in a dark library?

Do we not see the sun

rise and fall?

Do we not see the stars?

Do we not dream,

love,

ponder philosophy?

Why then are we not gods?

Why should we not

seek the secret reason

for walking upon

this ball of mud?

Part V

Tear up the book of gods!

Give your people a new hope.

Bring onto mortal soil

a spark of heaven

that immortals hoard for themselves.

And if demons with their fires

threaten still the world—

then take with you the oceans

and unleash their power!

For man was not born

to bow in darkness,

but to rise in fire,

to dream, to love,

to shape the future with his hands.

Jason R. Forbus