Candlelight.

Candlelight.

Light the candle

Hope lies

In the flickering flame

Yellow fingers

Clutching at straws

Hay bales piled high

In an old barn

A hurricane lamp

Waiting for a match

Newborns that cry

In the dark

Fate unknown.

Light comes and goes

The sky,

As vast as a cavern

Buried deep

Only an occasional star

Peeping through

Shifting clouds

Faceless ghosts

Giving the game away.

Tie me down

Or I may wander

Searching for the source

There is a lamplight shining

In the window

A lighthouse in the dark

It may afford a welcome.

I am glad that I am no miner

Nor a sailor out at sea

There is no flame to guide me

Once the candle dies

I am alone

On an empty night

The warmth of safety

But a breath away.

Blue light crackles with electricity

Marsh gas bubbles

Indignantly.

It is stagnant,

A fetid pool

Until the burning

Breaks the darkness

With a splinter of expectation.

I lie awake

Thinking of other times

Before the candle died

Plunging everything into

The abyss

And there was hope,

Haloed in its shining.