Sonnet of Shadow and Flame

When love ignites, it casts a radiant fire,

A warmth that banishes the creeping night;

Yet every flame must shape its own dark pyre,

Where shadows thrive beneath the tender light.

In memory’s glass, both brightness and despair

Lie intertwined like threads of gold and coal;

The sweetest song recalls a whispered prayer,

The bitter echo haunts the dreaming soul.

Imagination walks the twilight seam,

Between the sunlit fields and moonlit mist;

It spins the dark into a silver dream,

Where grief and joy in endless dance persist.

So love endures, half-shadow and half-sun,

A fractured whole, yet still it beats as one.