Candles Do
August 16-19, 1998

Dip us in paraffin and keep us to stay.
Adorn the top of our craniums, so we may light your way.
We'll perish, but recall the flame, each aura bright for you.
To act as a calm of brilliance; that's what we candles do.
With your caravan of thoughts during a quiet evening at home,
Be alone with our solitary sunshines, and let your mind roam.
Occupy some chose space: dark or dim, commodious, or you cramp.
Give yourself to a mild remission; we shall be your lamp.
When in tears over a love that drowned, and distrusts the bees, do swarm,
Lie your head upon your pillow; let our zeal be your dorm(itory).
Then, the thunderstorms. Utilities tried a bit.
While nightlights are in stasis, our camaraderie will guide you through it.
Whatever your writ, whatever you write, when you open a good book,
Keep us at your side, the chess is set, know the board but be the rook.
And while you yield to confronts of compositions, jotting on pages,
Allow our glows to meet your worlds. The czar of our wages.
Birthdays, some holidays, those times to mourn.
You will lift us to show some honor. All a celebration to be born.
Do pause for a moment of brightness, wherever you're resting, you'll
Return to rightness soon.
Peek out your window-curtain, see impassioned nights, adjorn our radiance
to the charm of the moon.
And, though we are not those sparklers that dot the upper arches
Allow our late morningstars to sound and kindle each beat of those listless marches.
We, together, are a limited sort, and, of course, our stay is never long.
For feelings are you, but faster we melt, and our cries are much more strong.
Many of us are made to be plain, many of us are wonderfully scented.
We come in many designs. Oh, to be invented.
Each a tallowy, little soldier with a slender, skeletal wick,
Burning ourselves to cold, burning ourselves too quick.
Thus, the true wax figures on this earth mostly blue.
An inescapable duty we candles must do.

© 1998 Jarrod C. Lacy