Dancing With the Flame

The room is dark as I enter,
Yet I know it is there.
Its fragrance greets my senses.

Tilting my head back, breathing deep
I absorb the welcoming evergreen bouquet.
Holding my breath for a moment I savor the aroma,
Hopeful it will linger.

I reach through the dark for my touch lamp,
Tap once, it softly illuminates the room.
There…alone, a candle, green and stoic, waits peacefully
Resting in a glass votive holder.

Again I pause, bend closer and
Inhale its memory gathering fragrance.
I strike a match. It ignites into a single fast flame,
Then calms and waits patiently as I place it to the wick of the waiting candle.

The candle, at first shy does not want to accept the matches’ offer of life.
Diligent am I, continuing to propose the matches gift of living.
Ultimately, the candle accepts the match’s bequest, advent with its own flame.
The match having done its job, I say thank-you, bid it farewell, and place it softly and somberly in its ceramic urn.

The candle burns with its new life.
Yellow fingers extend from blue arms
Reaching from a body of pooled green energy
And flames sway in time with the quiet music of its existence,
then flit and flaunt in the night striving to reach its particular destination.

Finally it arrives to where it wants to be…The candle ballroom, where
The shadows of its life dance upon the walls,
Flowing, gracefully to the ceiling about my head,
Taking me on a fragment soft journey,
mesmerizing …embracing me like an arbor entrance to a garden…
This garden of holly,
Evergreen,
Christmas memories.
One lone candle in the night, dancing with me.

Kellie M. Shanley © 2007