match lit,
flickering,
growing,
swaying,
dancing,
glowing,
melting,
melting,
melting,
fading,
subsiding,
snuffed out.

You are like a candle darling.
Hot from the inside,
Look how high you can fly.
I can feel your burning flame
Same with you burnt my heart.
I’m not the same with who you used to know,
Though the change didn’t happen in a night.
I remember the way you move,
How you danced before my eyes,
But now I can’t stop talking
Just the way I can’t stop thinking
You burnt my heart darling
But it won’t stop beating.

I light
the four candles
one at a time.

I place my mask
on my face.

The music
is wild
and somber.

I dance
and dance
and dance.

At some point
I stop thinking.

I just dance
and dance
and dance.

I hurl my frustration
into the
candles of change.

My thoughts are
a whirling
swirling cloud.

I draw strength
from these
fires of fury.

I dance
and I dance
and I dance.

I ground myself.

I give
the furious strength
back.

I go deeper.
I find
new strength within.

Not frustration.
Not fury.
But acceptance.

I smile.
I take my mask
off.

And I keep dancing.

My candle is my motivation
Because I am often in the dark
I stare down at the feeble fire
And get lost within my art

On days when the sun is hard to see
And when I’m lacking fire within
There is my candle shining still
A tiny flame that never dims

For hours in the dark I write
Crouched next to the bitsy blaze
My candle fuels me to keep going
In hope of brighter days

You are asleep and I lie beside you. How is it
that you can create tenderness and transcendence
when you are in stillness? Yes, the gentle breeze
of summer's night blows through the open window
and wafts through your golden hair, but you are
deep in slumber, and only the flame of the yellow
candle on the dresser top acknowledges this susurrus.
There is upon us a deep silence as the full moon
slowly makes its way across night's sky. I am now
carefully on my elbow gazing at your iridescent
visage. I turn my head and look at the mirror that
doubles my pleasure. Can I be this blessed even
for a moment? Serenity surrounds us. I lean over
to kiss your forehead lightly. Imagine a lifetime of
bliss, nightimes of joy, sharing with you in silence
the fullness of loving and being loved as the moon
passes by, as the yellow candle's flame flickers
like the vicissitudes of life, but knowing all the
while that gentle breezes will blow all unease and
uncertainties away as the sun begins to rise.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks