By Candlelight

By Candlelight

A candle burns within a dark abyss
And pushes back the awful, shadowed space;
It gives a warmth that soon gives birth to life,
And lights the way for life to grow and thrive.

Then soon a host of other little lights
Arise and strengthen the wan candle’s glow;
Like stars they sit and shine and seem as gods
Who watch and spill their joyful tears below.

The lighted bubble seems without an edge,
Without horizons or bounding line
To any eyes that gaze from here within
While blinded by the light they get and give.

They see the beauty and the pain of life,
Which sow the seeds that sprout in forms of art,
Or see the workings of the world occur
And fashion laws to understand and rule.

But always outside of the candle’s glow,
The dark abides, outside of light and life,
Beyond the language and the laws and arts
Of fleeting flames that flicker, fade, and die.

Image credit: NCCo, from Wikimedia Commons, under a GNU Free Documentation License.