To light a solitary candle
may not seem like much
but will suffice to
illuminate a neighbor’s path -
obscured by the loss of day.

So we strike a match
and with charring fiber and melting wax
reveal our neighbors’ faces
glowing faintly in the shadows.

Friends gather to join
their wicks and wax with ours
spreading shafts of hope-born light -
melting despair and gloom
in consoling flames of transfiguration.

Like a lighthouse set high on a cliff,
our beacons will shine through
the dark and fog of uncertainty -

       Light to press the harm aside
       Light to safen the shaking ones

in vessels great and small
from splintering against the rocks.

To light a single candle
may not seem like much
but it can suffice.
This we can do and we will!

The girl never knew what love was...

She had only heard people falling in love...

But whether love was an abyss or a deep ocean to fall into...She could understand it not!
...

Yet when she gazed at the moon his smiling face was all she saw...

When she lazily strolled in her garden...In the hum of the bees she could but hear his excited voice...

And when she sat down to paint her favourite picture... Her hands always unknowingly drew a pair of dreamy eyes...

She couldn't fathom her restlessness on calm nights and her calm on stormy days...

The world she thought had gone mad...

But little did the naive girl know that it was her world that was being carved irrevocably with...

The shape of love!

if I let go
I will sink
I am too heavy to float
my head is dense
like a forever forest
that never faces fall
everything that enters
mixes with everything
already there
I cannot sleep
my dreams are too intense
layers upon layers
secret passages
dead ends
I can barely find my way out
and eventually
I may not want to
what happens then
who will ever find me
in my forever forest

The smells of frankincense and myrrh made holy the air...
As white flames with smoke veiled the deity...
The one priest with folded hands and bowed head...
Offered his obeisance to the one he had always thought of as his own... his one Lord God!

Far away in an unknown land...
Another man was counting the beads of his rosary...
Singing hymns in praise of the One...
His protector and nourisher... His one Almighty God!

Yet when night took over the day...And the two men prepared for slumber...
The universal One sang the same cosmic lullaby:
"My children under one roof...!"