My first poem of 2014
My poems are nearly always spontaneous things and my poetry muse can be fast and furious or go on vacation for months. Regardless of which, I set up a ‘Poems (insert year)’ folder every year and by the end of each year have normally amassed quite a few. This one came to me yesterday and is the first of 2014. It’s about love, life, grief and death – it’s about humanity and extending our empathy to those we don’t even know, and it’s about whatever else you want it to be about.
Alight
I light a single candle
ignite a flame for you
then remembering another
slice one flame into two.
I think of many others –
once loved
now also gone –
and wonder if another flame
will help them linger on.
I close my eyes imagining
all those I never knew
and how their loving memories linger
only with a few.
I think of those unknown
unloved
untouched
then cast aside
and blink away the ragged thoughts
that scratch away my eyes.
I light another candle
then another
and another
I light them for the untouched ones’
absent fathers, absent mothers
and when I run out of candles –
my flame hovering in the air –
I let it kiss the wood ribbed floor
and find some comfort there.
I love the fact that poetry is open and ambiguous and interpretations are so subjective. I love also that even if you don’t understand all of a poem’s meanings, you can still read a poem and get a real sense and feel for what was intended.
I’m always interested to hear other people’s interpretations and feelings as these can be enlightening, and sometimes readers make connections which you, as the writer, hadn’t noticed.
And another thing, when writing a poem, for me, it rarely ends up the way I thought it would. Initial intentions and ideas become a mere fragment of the end piece – ideas develop and words change to fit in with the rhythm and the overall sense. For example, I wanted ribbons of flame, but realised that a wood ribbed floor, with a parallel to actual skeletal ribs, would offer a more complete ending – a place for the match to rest after his work was done.
Anyway… I hope you enjoyed it!
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