‘The Stairway’ by Daniel Magdalen

Your spirit’s eyes, now opened, see
The timeless steps of stone ahead…
Old debts weigh down your weakened knee,
Each step, a human burden’s shed.

While slogging up the sacred blocks,
This trying but fulfilling climb
Casts off the sinfully wrought locks
To your soul’s roots sealed off in time.

The closer to the top you get,
The narrower this stairway feels.
No more, though, is your mind beset
By gusts of grief, from which man reels.

Keep high your gaze, for down below
Death’s gaping precipice awaits…
In emptiness… atop… you flow
Toward bright worlds blooming, past sky’s gates.

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

Featured Image: ‘Reception of Condé in Versailles’ by Jean-Léon Gérôme