Burned

I stood on the edge of a great mountain

I bathed in streams of snowmelt, cold and clear

My lungs like a bellows, pumping my heart

I lived in a world of little oxygen

I contemplated deep philosophies

There were no mysteries to challenge me

I spoke to God, and god spoke back to me

The divine word, resounding in the light

I looked down on the people with despair

I despised them, the unworthy masses

I cut my leg on a sharp stone, and fell

A pathogen set in, and I grew ill

My wound became discolored, infected

It crawled up my veins in jagged red streaks

I needed antibiotics. doctors

Despite my constitution, I would die

I was afraid for my life, mortified

By the ease with which I was struck down

I lost the mastery of my ego

My self-satisfaction turned to loathing

I was afraid, now, of death and darkness

Fever and pneumonia nearly took me

My powerful lungs, turned to feeble sacks

My muscles became flaccid, I was lost

I lived in a wheelchair, I could not work

I had no skills, I became dependent

I stewed in contempt, bewailing my fate

My lost holiness, my former station

I waited for the god I once walked with

To lift me from this world, to transform me

I became obsequious and grateful

For the few coins that were dropped in my cup

For the small sum of funds given to me

Deposited each month in my mailbox

I discovered the vice of alcohol

I measured a new form of endurance

How many days and nights could I stay drunk

I lost the bet, and died in an alley

I fell from my wheelchair with the garbage

Face down in my filth and my excrement

My spirit rose, lifting from the valley

I saw my mountain tall and forbidding

I cringed as I ascended, fearing God

Soiled as I was, and miserable

Broken as I was, unwashed, unshriven

I rose past the cold peak of my mountain

Rising higher than I had ever dreamed

The bright sun touched me with its tongues of fire

I was burned...burned alive, I was burned clean

By the brilliance of the spirit, love