PROTECTED BY FIRE

Quan Yin wears many faces
Some are gentle
Some are fierce
Born of eastern tradition
The goddess of compassion
She fades to the west
And burns brightest in the east
The Black Mahakala is one of her faces
He is rebirth
He is death
He's the funeral pyre
The world on fire
He severs attachments
And to the ego, he is death

He came to me at a dreadful hour
I closed my eyes
And the images poured
He studied my face
My thoughts, he could trace
He reflected the mind
I already wore
Tall flames moved around him
And molten metal poured
He was exploding power
He wore skulls, not flowers
When everyone scatters
He gathers the wood

For years, I had these visions
They waited for me
When I closed my eyes
They were there to reflect me
To read and protect me
To reconnect me
With the many eyes
I was ecstatic with grief
Entombed underneath
Under earth's pressure
I had fossilized
I'd have to walk the path of fire
Protected by the great ignitor
He had come to smoke me out

He was ferocious protection
My burning reflection
He told me the truth
In my hour of doubt
To live is to walk through fire
The slow dance on the funeral pyre
The path that burns holes in the feet
Enlightens the way out
I had a habit of going under
Of only hearing the thunder
My head was full of water
And the tide was always dragging me out
It was the fire that protected me
And I didn't want it to be
I knew I'd have to burn
Until I was all the way out

His wisdom is ancient
Old and forgotten
Faded away with so much else
He comes to let the fire grow
To burn the holes
To illuminate the places
That we last want to look
Compassion is not flying
It's more like falling
Again and again and again
It whispers to us - just keep moving
From the ash, new things are growing
You will learn to rebuild and reframe

His compassion is made of fire
So we learn to touch the pain
His path is one of last resort
So we may live to outlast the flames
He is made of light, but born of fire
Through fear and hesitation
His blade cuts through
He's our world when it's on fire
Mahakala - the great ignitor
His love for me was rare and true.