Firewalker

No static
contemplation.
Movement is the key;
Direction, any direction...
inaction
brings destruction.

Turn around,
darkness and glowing
embers
behind and about,
active thought
yields nothing,
remember
shadow, remember
doubt.
This step?
This one,
or that?
Step back
and feet fling
cinders
which splinter
and illuminate
a path.
This-
this vanished
past.
Ashes cloud
around feet
and murky memory
diminishes
until another
footfall
scatters
the dimming dust
and shatters
coals
to tiny sparks
dancing,
cooling,
to quickly fade.

It's time to
move,
sensation swells
to searing scream,
sulfur smells
are obscured
by burning flesh reek,
blood boils
and evaporates
to steam.
It's time
to move, plod on,
stagger,
do not fall,
do not fail.
Failure means
annihilation;
not mere death,
but painful
disintegration-
molecule by
molecule
exploding,
dessicating,
dissolving.

Flailing now,
the fear
provoking flight,
blind stumbling,
shaking
sweating
slipping...

Within my mind
I'm wading;
water,
glacier-fed,
cascading
snow-cold
around my ankles.
Prisimatic droplets
sparkle in sunlight
and splash
against my
skin- my
thighs, my chest.
The breeze
stirs
through the trees
carrying
the scent of
spring-
flowers
and earth,
a world born anew
from ice
and darkness.

My toes
slip
and struggle
for purchase
on stones
smoothed
from eons
of river's
caress.
The pool
expands before
me,
it's surface
the dancing
glow of sunshine
reflected,
and
I
plunge...