! ! Candlelight Poem by Michael Shepherd

So many bees, who know so much
that only bees can tell,
gave their life’s devotion
to this single source of light;
silent whisper for your attention
to what it has to tell your sight,

before its substance burns, returns
into the upper air…

gently burns on altar, or scented in the bathroom’s grace;
or here in front of you, gentle hypnotist
for the wandering mind;
to which it has so much to tell..

tells of humility; gently burning
in a stable, before a birth;

tells of loving-kindness; gives itself,
yet asks for nothing but to be itself;

tells of worship: worship, first, of what the bees are;
and here in this honey-coloured form
is their own worship;
waxing silent in murmured devotion;

warming miraculously, into liquid wax;
only love can be so liquid;
only love can reach so far;

liquid, warmed into this present light:
the candle’s flame you know so well
yet cannot shape or hold;

already, candle hints to you
that there is that beyond all sense:

for round its light, air’s gently warmed:
drawing the flame itself into the invisible above
like the soul that’s yearning for its homeland;

and beyond, within, that air you cannot see
unless it moves some other thing,
it lights the space – space which is not
bathroom, altar; but all space;

candle tells you of all that;
draws the mind with steady, silent truth
to all creation in a single flame;

flame that asks for naught of you
but your attention; which it will reward
by telling you in stillness,
what you worship in yourself;

the light of self, that shines before all men
and glorifies its maker
like a gentle flame that cannot be put out.