A Writer’s Vocation

As I sit at my study table with the fire warming the silence of this rainy afternoon,

a slender flame leaps out of the place of shadows,

making me profess that which may not go in vain.

As I lift the pen with my rough hand and bring the diary of my life so far, toward me,

I ask the flame of knowledge burning before my eyes . . . where do I go from here? What is my vocation?

Answer? It gave me naught but its bright words burnt my paper thrice;

Upon the words I wrote it bade them to leap from slumber and enter within.

It is just that every writer of prose will come to understand that his writings only

come from that one single pure fire that blemishes the red wounds of a sage’s flesh for us;

that every time you lift…