I

Midway upon your life’s relentless way, you find yourself lost in a shadowed wood- dusk of the soul defying break of day.

The path behind you vanished where it stood, memories mumble like ghosts among trees; the future’s face is dark, not understood.

Night thickens around your heart, hopes freeze, fear whispers that you’ve wandered here to die. A wind from beyond the world chills the breeze.

But then a spark in darkness catches your eye- a lone flame flickers, speaking with tongues of light: “You must die, every day,” you hear the sigh.

The words alight inside you, strange and bright; they burn like a brand on your being’s core. Trembling, you approach that fire in the night.

It crackles ancient truths from ages yore: Memento mori-a voice in the ember, “to be reborn each dawn, die day before.”

Your knees weaken as you faintly remember legends of sages who learned death’s art, who died while living, true life to discover.

The flame sways closer, aiming at your heart; you feel heat of change, fear and longing blend. To step into that fire-will you depart

all you have clung to? Can this be your end before the end? Your ego protests, cries that its small reign of illusions must extend.

Yet something older in your soul replies: a silent knowing, echo of the wise saying the phoenix must in ashes rise.

You stand at the crossroads of night and morn, the abyss of unknown yawning ahead, behind you the tangle of life outworn.

Resolve erupts through paralysis dread- inspired by that whisper “die each day,” you answer the call to step forth and shed

the skins of self that no longer can stay. In that first leap of faith, you touch the flame- pain and revelation in fierce array.

Fire climbs your form, calling you by name and all that you think you are chars to dust. You fall to ash, in darkness just the same.

Silence. Surrender. A stillness you trust. In dying this once, night’s terror is braved- a hint that in death’s shadow, life is fussed.

As smoke of your past clears from the concave hollows of your chest, you see a faint glow: dawn’s promise that from death, you are saved.

Your ashes stir softly, new heartbeat slow; you feel in that soot a seed start to grow.