Rushlights Poem by Jared Carter

Home-made candles, each consisting of
the pith of a rush dipped in tallow.

to the memory of my father

They might have known such things, but all too often
they listened for a while, and then forgot - the sound
of water pouring through the mill-race; a clock wound
with a silver key; a last nail hammered in the coffin.

Of your own footfall, nothing stays. In the years
since you've been gone, I've sought out ways to follow
moments we both shared, that left no trace. A swallow
banks above the vanished barn; an owl draws near.

On summer evenings I have gone out riding, roaming
along the western road - have drifted through the husk
of lost towns, where the stagecoach still stops at dusk,
where a stump lantern lights the way in the gloaming.

And once, when I came to the crossroads at Milton,
where four houses stood, one on each corner, I heard
a fiddle's scraping, and the caller clapping hard,
and knew a wake or a wedding was about to begin -

and rode past tiers of windows filled with rushlights
marking some high moment there, some memorable sadness
or joy that only live music and dancing could bless -
that, and the burning of candles long into the night.

Not far beyond the town, in the dark, the horse and I
were lost, carrying that brightness within us, until
it faded at last, and we reached the top of a hill.
I looked out and saw our way through the night sky.


From After the Rain. First published in Plains Poetry Journal.


Below: 'The Polish Rider' (c.1654) by Rembrandt (1606-1669) .