Candles Never Lit

Wicks held captive
Or perhaps
Protected
Embryos held in tethered limbo

What shall the flame's first breath be
Beneath a citadel of worship
A first birthday
A stealth venture into the attic
An exploration through one's innate catacombs
Experienced alone

Life's simple tool made company
Exploring rooms of discovery
A comfort-place of isolation
Where one's dreams
One's fears
Remain ever faithful to light's purpose

For just as birth bears but singular reality
So too the limpid string
Encased in its molten nativity
Made hard
To last
Is used
As the grounding
The tool enabling serene freedom

Glimmer's heat
Radiance flickering
One's ethereal passion
Seeks no object to burn
No identity to possess
But solely to be

The candle's flame
But for imagining
Dreams of no restrictions
Just as the child sees everything as natural
Just as the shimmer of what can be
Is
Except for those who...

Only beholden to the consent
Of one's creativity
One's willingness to burn fully
Then accept the dimming
For the moment
Having expended its full radiance
For now
But remaining ever ready for the next lighting

How sad
Those boxed candles never lit
Knowing never of their purpose