Breakthrough of the Radiant Heart

You’ve come through flame, that’s why you’re glowing.
Don’t be so alarmed others speed to your light.
It is the soul smelted down that has proven its worth.

In the same way, you cannot buy compassion
but must carve it, heart-shaped, of your own flesh.
Your furnace is their freedom—burn!

Refined though not as silver, I’m coming out of this beautiful,
for at the end, we are all salted by fire.
Behold! My change comes, both eventual and suddenly.

Though it take years, though it kill me,
I’m still calling it miracle.

View the painting that inspired the poem.