It's Still Life

Csárdás — (the heart’s Final fire)

First,
the bow drags slow.
A raw, dusk-coloured moan
rising from the fiddle’s belly,
pulled from soil older
than any spoken name.

A field at sundown stirs there:
the sag of an empty chair,
steam rising from a bowl gone cold,
a love that lingers
like breath on winter glass.

Then,
the spark catches.

The heart remembers fire.
The rhythm snaps its spine straight.
Heels strike the boards,
sharp, defiant,
and skirts flare wide,
bright whirlwinds blooming
against the dark.

The room lifts.
Sweat beads.
Someone laughs through tears.

This is no lament.
This is an uprising,
a fierce, barefoot prayer:
If God gives me sorrow,
I will give Him thunder.

I will wear grief
as a red-scorched crown,
outrun despair
with hammering feet,
spin my hurt fast enough
to turn it holy.

The fiddle weeps,
yes,
but it also grins,
wolf-bright,
in the very same breath.

It is the sound
of a soul choosing flame
over silence.
Movement
over vanishing.
A life refusing
to stay still.