The Candle

(Dedicated to the memory of a much loved member of the Mooroolbark conference, Val Stafford, who passed away on 28 March 2019)

Lost in the candle’s dancing flame,
The human heart forgets its woe
As memories come flooding in
Of all that was so long ago.

Childhood candles on marble altars
Wisdom candles on wayside shrines
Candles around the solemn coffins
Of youth’s assassinated dreams.

Dispel the darkness in my soul,
Cast out the gloom of barren years;
Light up the little time remaining
before the darkness stakes its claim.

How little time and space we fill in living
for you and I must run our course and be no more.
Consuming fire we share the processes of self-destruction
till only dust is left.
And who will distinguish yours from mine?

And yet one last, faint hope remains;
that when the tyranny of time is overcome,
everything that ever was will always be,
embedded, fixed in timelessness, Eternity!

Jim Clearly