The candle on my desk is all hope, a small flame, struggling,

Singing its faint song to the dark ceiling and walls,

It will burn on till the end, faintly, believing,

As the evening builds to infinities of night, 

And creatures emerge to scour the darkening alleys,

And drunk women lean against brick walls and remember

And cold winds slide among the tombs of the dead.

 

The dark night will summon the strange faiths of the world,

As day’s weapons slide from our hands a great sigh rises,

Intentions die and give rise to a landscape of souls

That linger by trees, watching with soft white eyes,

Passive, curious, cloying nixie hands of light

Aflame in manifold burstings betwixt the impatternings

Of stars, and looming branches dark as shadow’s soul,

The grass a cool ocean sighing for an ecstatic reality.

 

But there is no reality in night’s soft paradox, and the candle,

Burns with sweet confidence, in defiance of it all,

Knowing that life at its core is that imperturbable hopefulness

And a few slender strands of light thrown prayerfully

To the wall.