‘Passing Through the Woods of Ash’ by Daniel Magdalen

Dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have peacefully resisted persecution by the communist regime in China for 17 years, since July 20, 1999.

When the world’s despondent spirit sets in heavy clouds of slumber,
One last gaze of thought transports me to the woods of baleful bawling…
Gusts of moaning wind start seizing blackened leaves, too fast to number,
Stirring drizzles from their ashes, which keep hopelessly on falling.

As I glide through mists benumbing, soon, a startling scene emerges:
One by one, young human figures, cloaked from any ray of reason,
Languishingly sink in quicksand, led to dance by blinding urges;
“Let us seize the day,” they murmur… drowning in their chosen prison.

Farther, on a barren hillock, I see sheepless shepherds searching
To reap promises of bounty, on a sloping trail to nowhere.
Craving more but ending empty, they are led by voices surging
From a den of prowling serpents… Lured within, they’ll crave no more there.

*

Rising swarms of specters gather in a sky-obscuring cyclone,
And the land… begins receding into Hell’s abyss, now open.
Rotten imps unleash man’s madness: Hammers crush each god-sent gemstone!
Scriptures burn! The crowd now worships Havoc’s beast, through bloody token.

Suddenly, the ground collapses… from below, the roaring fire
Summons all its hordes of zombies to slay Dawning’s blessed Heralds –
But their brightness wakes the spellbound! Wings of Hope, which never tire,
Lift these souls from hatred’s maelstrom as they grasp the call of Heavens.

Thus, through fuming flood of madmen – born of dust, to dust returning –
Like grand lightning piercing darkness come Compassion’s emissaries
Spreading words of Light, that flourish in man’s heart, to rouse the yearning
To ascend beyond deception, to breathe bliss that aether carries.

*

I can feel auspicious breezes bringing glimpses of tomorrow,
While the nightmare’s realm is melting to a memory of mourning.
Let the sunbeams fill our vision, blurred no more by mortal sorrow,
For the homeward path’s unfolding toward resplendent skies of Morning.

Ever distant seems, below us, history’s black void expanding,
As we reach effulgent waters of the sky’s translucent ocean,
Waves of eons swiftly passing… scenes beyond man’s understanding
Make the soul in awe to quiver, shattering each worldly notion.

Now, the Promised Land emerges – a blank scroll for mankind’s story,
Which begins anew. A wonder ushers in the sunrise, beaming:
Truth embodied by lush beauty in empyreal worlds’ glory
Welcomes back the holy Heralds forged by Light, through Light redeeming.

Daniel Magdalen is a graduate student in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest, in Romania.