Monday, April 20, 2009

By Candle's Light

And you all thought that all I was good for were a few lines of emo rhyme...

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By Candle's Light


This sea of darkness presses

All about my candle dear

Light and warm in its essence

And its death my deepest fear


How can I make it always burn?

What is that on the edge of night?

It is a fellow traveler

But her taper is not dimly bright


Now I see what must be done

She has no light to go by

Candle outstretched, closer she comes

Wick to wick the flame unites


She blinks and smiles at me

And we give a Japanese nod

For already she can see

The next one to pass it on


The darkness about cringes

At this flickering dawn

It tries to press the fringes

But we still hurry along


Another light joins our twane

Leaping almost between them

Such joy on a lightened face

Who’s eyes before were so darkened


Now black fingers draw inward

The light meaning to drown

But they are pulled back, burned

As we reach a darkling crowd


Rushing to meet the first mark

To touch the long flameless wicks

A cheer rises from the dark

As my gaze is transfixed


For one by one the fire is spread

Like a river streaming of flame

And a joy to my heart this sight sends

For my small light became night’s bane


And as if in answer to this

Threat of light made blinding bright

The shadow writhes wraithlike hiss

As rising draco shrikes dreadful night.


But strong is the light to resist

An army, with swords of flame

Burning away the inky mists

A luminous will to darkness maim


From the fielded burning stars

Forth comes a swirl of power

A pulsing spiral, spreading bars

Forms a nimbus rising tower


The greasy dark spreads to cover

Nearly winking out the points

As the luminous mass hovers

And forms a ball, a focused point


But when shadow seems to triumph

To gloat in victory perceived

The light suspended erupts

And expands floods blindingly


The void fills with the violent rays

Bursting spreading forming anew

Forms dire, fierce, angelic, fey

They rend the darkness, breaking through


It screams, a thousand wailing keens

Of greed-filled hopes betrayed,

And there is no trace to keep

Luminous flights drive it away


And there revealed to us bearers,

Of the flickering birth stars,

Lies the land we did wander

But with no darkness that mars


A new life has been given to us

The people about me do laugh and sing

And my soul is flood with happiness

They walk in the grass sit ‘neath trees they can now see

And I plant in the earth the thing that was

The start and source of all this


And there upon the hilltop

Where we fought the dark

Stand the candles that we held

Somehow they hardened and meld

And together flowed to form a blazing torch

A reminder to the new world

And a light against the dark


and lest we forget

the meaning meant

a candle alone can hold the dark at bay

but it's light must spread to break the day


-The Revig

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