Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘candle’

Woodsy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2024| 8 Comments »

somewhere above Telluride, Colorado


If you close your eyes and just breathe in,
then it’s sixteen years ago and we’re off the trail
roaming through damp autumn woods.
The duff is soft with needles, moss,
and the air is scented with resinous spruce—
fresh and woodsy, tangy, bright.
Sun filters into the evergreen glade
to kiss the clearing with light. Remember, love?
Whatever dreams we brought in with us,
they, too, came to smell of earth, forest,
musk and shade. The mountains
had their way with us that day.
We said little, but by the time we left,
shadow-drunk and gloriously map-less,
everything had changed.  

Read Full Post »

Though You Are Far Away

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 30, 2023| 10 Comments »

       for Paula
 
 
On your birthday,
I light a candle in my kitchen.
There is no cake, no singing,
no balloons, no streamers,
but there is love
and there is this small light
that no one will blow out.
It will burn all night,
this little flame that celebrates
the enormity of your life—
you, more sun than candlelight.
you, more blaze than glimmer.
Even thousands of miles away,
I feel your warmth—since we met,
it’s never left me.
I see the world with that light.

Read Full Post »

Ode to Lighting the Candle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 14, 2020| 6 Comments »




Tonight when we light
the third candle,
the candle of joy,
I remember
I am a girl
sitting beside
an evergreen wreath,
giddy with advent,
and I breathe in the scent
of spruce and wax
and fall in love
with the growing
of the light—
how each week
the tapers burn brighter—
and such a surprise
to find I am also
in love with the unlit candle,
in love with the wait,
in love with the part
of me that even
in darkness
knows itself
as flame.

Read Full Post »

Shabbat

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 14, 2019| 7 Comments »

for Peter and Lisa

 

 

We covered our eyes with our hands

and repeated the sacred words that Peter said,

blessing the pomegranate juice, blessing

 

the challah bread. And when we were done

with the prayer, we removed our hands

from our eyes and the candlelit world

 

was surprisingly bright. Such a simple faith,

kindness. The willingness to invite another in,

to make them bread, to offer them soup,

 

to say to the other, Here. Feast. Rest. To share

ancient stories and offer new wisdom.

To pass the braided bread, hand to hand,

 

and eat it together. To listen to each other

until the candles had burned through all their wax.

To continue to listen after the light goes out.

Read Full Post »

Perhaps a Chance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

It’s not that way with all things. Some that go are gone.

            —A.R. Ammons, “Eyesight”

 

 

And so it is that

even after the candle flame

is gone, yes, after

the flame is gone,

the carbon and unburned

wax vapor in the smoke

will still combust when touched

by a match, will travel down

the smoke and reignite

the wick. It sounds

like magic—looks like it,

too, a small ball of flame

dropping bright through the air.

So tonight when

my friend sends me

a video of just such

a marvel, I play it

again and again.

And all the burned out

wicks in me stand up

just a little bit straighter

and I stare at them

to notice if there is

still any smoke, and

my god, if I don’t just

run to the drawer

and find me

a box of matches,

their sticks brittle,

their tips as red

as hope.

Read Full Post »

One Prayer for Healing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

all day, the candle’s light

almost invisible, all day

I think of the girl

in the hospital, all day

to the light that is, adding more light

Read Full Post »

The Power Out

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on December 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

and so we rise in darkness

and let our bodies move

without the blare of light.

The house is still and we

are somehow changed

by stillness, changed

by dark. As if we’ve

grown pads in our feet.

As if we are learning

a new silent language

with our limbs, a language

more graceful, more awake.

We find candles. Find

matches. Let the tiny lights

find us. For a thousand years

in Egypt, they wrote

and rewrote The Book

of Emerging Forth into the Light,

a series of writings we somehow came

to call The Book of the Dead.

All the spells were written

to help the dead person journey

through hostile forces

into the afterlife.

And this morning, we

are our only obstacles.

Still, the candles

are a bit like spells,

guiding us with their brilliant ink

toward dawn. There

are no warnings, no judgements,

no naming of evil spirits.

Only this new language

to learn with its syntax

of carbon, it etymologies

of shadow, its phonemes

of coming light.

 

Read Full Post »

One Example

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 10, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

the candle runs out—

knowing this, the wick

burns no less bright

Read Full Post »