"The light you bear is borrowed, but the path is yours alone—
The lantern's just a vessel for the fire in your soul."

Some paintings and poems find each other years later. This is one of those.

The Lantern in the Fog appears in my poetry collection Trauma: Poems and Songs of a Failed Life — written long before this painting existed. But the figure walking toward the burst, feet dissolving in the dim, a flame that isn't his own — it's all there.

The painting isn't about arrival. Neither is the song.
They're both about the walk.

Full lyrics below.

The Lantern in the Fog 
(Verse 1)Cm – Bb – Ab – G 
I met a monk in Avalon, he spoke without a sound
 His eyes were like two cinders from a fire underground
 He handed me a lantern, said, “This is not for light—
 It’s for the ones who wander when the road dissolves at night.”

(Chorus)
 And oh, the mountain whispers it knows my name
 It hums soft and low
 The stars have turned their faces away
And the moon won’t let itself shown
 But there’s a flame behind the curtain
 And a bell without a clapper
 And I walk on toward the silence
 My feet disappear in the dim light

(Verse 2)
 The lantern flickered gently, though no wick or oil it burned
 I asked him what it wanted, he said, “That’s for you to learn.”
 I carried it through graveyards, where the marble saints had wept
 Past rivers that remembered staring through the secrets i kept

(Chorus)
  And oh, the mountain whispers it knows my name
 It hums it soft and low
 The stars have turned their faces away
 And the moon won’t let itself shown
 But there’s a voice beneath the thunder
 And a rope without a mast
 And I walk on through the echo
Dissolving into the mist

(Bridge)
 She waits beyond the border, dressed in veils of falling dust
 With hands like folded wings and eyes that see through rust
 She says, “The light you bear is borrowed, but the path is yours alone—
 The lantern’s just a vessel for the fire in your soul.”

(Final Chorus)
 And oh, the wind it knows my name
 It hums it soft and low
 The stars have turned their faces
 But I still have miles to go
 There's a gate without a keeper
 And a flame I must take
For forever it will be prisoned
 'Til the debt of light is paid
(my soul rest in peace, in the devils grave)

Framed canvas available here