Creation’s Flame

Back then,

there had to have been a refugee

who suffered and escaped Hitler,
survived within New York’s cold-water flats,
accepted electrical power as dream,
hot running water as fantasy,
and saw his candle as life saver.

Under flame’s meager light
flew his nubby pencil,
the written napkin poems piling,
the passion recorded,
its accessibility for the taking.

So went this simple migrant,
bereft of fancy clothes,
short of food,
even everyday shoes.

Such a plight was embraced,
for he had no regrets,

he had found himself alive,

no aspiration to become
something he was not.

Willing to just be who he was,
a man happy writing from his experience
trusting the napkins of shared imagination,

left any and everywhere,

might empower another someday

to remain satisfied with living life as it came.

Times proved hard.

Odd jobs paid the rent.
Sterno boiled the greens.
re-melted candle-drippings made the light.

Finally…

Regrets absent,
his pencil,
his poetry,

joined him.

The flame extinguished,
giving final solace to a dreamer

who labored anonymously,
died anonymously,

remained buried anonymously.

Somewhere…

Most likely left behind,

was an empowered one,
finding his own small candle
keeping lit the spirit

of creation’s very inordinate flame.