Beyond the Door

(Found here)

Who kindles a fire but it draw you,
oh pilgrim moth, across another night?
Through it you plunge immune to promises
of warmth and its comfort, or greater sight.

And though all your shadows might turn to ash
you dash forward with speed unabated
through stinging smoke unto the very gold.
By more than this gold illuminated,

you fly as if believing that this flame
could be the door whose flicker discloses
that light has always been a sacred place
which holds your final metamorphosis.

You’ll lose all loss and change—these shall be left
in the husk of darkness—that last cocoon—
and then shall cease your weary back and forth,
the fruitless courting of the fickle moon.

While filled with wind and flecked with gold, your

    wings
are somehow still too poor a majesty
to keep you here. Yet I’ve been so taken
with feet and all their dusty dignity.

I burn with shame while you burn with glory.
Be my vanguard, you blazing seraphim!
For I also know of the golden door
beyond whose threshold now I hear a hymn

whose strains stir in my soul my true desire.
I shall have a face. I shall have a name.
One blessed day I’ll dwell in that dear light
and with angels shall endlessly proclaim

Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Hosts!
I see you burn and yearn for my homeland,
oh moth; I long for that better country
and the golden city that God has planned.

Yet while I am still here I’ll go with you,
taking the path that saints have trod before.
They looked with faith up through the door and heard
the voice that cried: All things I shall restore!

~Phillip Aijian