This cauldron
This burning
This fire
This longing of my life
Which burns me from the inside
Threatens to consume me

“Go to the limits of your longing”
The Poet* enthralls me
“Flare up like a flame”
“Embody me”

I’m cast into the furnace
To test my faith
The flame inside me rises
Greater, stronger, fiercer
Than the fire which surrounds

I breathe in the heat, the smoke
Feed the longing which I fear
Will annihilate me

There in those flames
In the shadows cast by
That great glaring light
Form takes shape
Emerges to stand beside me

The king and all watching eyes
Perceive in awe
No longer one alone
But two
The loved and the beloved
Reach, take each other’s hand
Walk forward into life.

Raine Brown,
September 2017
*Rainer Maria Rilke
Book of Hours, I 59