Life Afire


Wicks held captive,
Protected embryos held in tethered limbo
Awaiting the moment
When life is aflame.

How varied the shimmering first breath,
Whether beneath a citadel of worship,
A first birthday,
A stealth venture into the attic,
Or an exploration of one's personal catacombs.

Such a simple tool this,
Made companion to realms of imagination,
Perhaps a comfort-place of isolation
Where one's dreams and fears
Await the ever-faithful flame of illumination.

For just as birth awaits its singular reality,
So too the protected string
Encased in its molten womb
Knows that to be,
Is to be born of radiance.

Only the candle knows
Its glimmering heat,
Its brightness flickering,
Seeking no identity to possess,
But solely to serve.

And of this life,
A candle that lives but to illuminate,
Is beholden to the desire of one's need,
One's willingness to allow the luminescence its freedom.

As in old age,
Even when expended radiance is but a flicker
And the glow accepts eventual dimming,
Life hopes beingness is only at rest.

For like the infant ensconced in its own kind of darkness,
The unlit candle waits patiently to be born,
Anticipating the reward of being alive,
Merely needing to set life aglow.