A Sliver of the Sun

A sliver of the sun

Given life by wick and wax

Flickers in a darkened room,

So fragile in the winds that run

But leave behind no tracks.

A flame against the gathered gloom

Guides the spirits of the night

Toward a space where tales are spun

And woven, finding all the cracks

That haunt the human heart, but bright

The stories build and bloom

To block each new nocturnal fright.

 

With time, wax dripping, dripping down

Dims the sinking candlelight,

But as the sliver starts to drown

And heavy eyeballs lose their sight,

There falls a new protective gown

Of stories sown by fire’s gleam,

Which guards against the doldrums’ bite

And grants a hopeful dream.

As you might imagine, I started writing this poem by candlelight, during an evening when the electricity was out in my apartment. It offers an image of the lit candle as a glimmer of hope in dark surroundings, and that glimmer can keep the darkness at bay through the creative inspiration it gives as one reads or writes by its light. Even after the candle dims, the stories it revealed and inspired maintain that hope.

Coming of Age

The ceremony came and went.

Did it make the world new?

They’d said the years he’s thus far lent

Were now his own, to live and do

As he saw fit.

They’d said his lifetime would be split

Between the younger days he spent

As he was learning bit by bit

What being someone older meant,

And all the years

Beyond today, whose dawn holds fears

And hopes exceeding what he’s knit

Before. He hears the ringing cheers

And wonders if this moment’s lit

So differently.

He still believes that there will be

Greater dreams and stronger tears

Yet knows the truly crucial key

Is not the ceremony’s gears

But how he lives the life he’ll see.

I've been thinking about coming of age ceremonies recently, probably because some of the communities we've been working in have some pretty distinctive rituals and activities associated with passing from childhood to adulthood. But, I also have other ceremonies in mind from other places, related, for example, to things like education and religion (graduation, confirmation, bar/bat mitzvah, etc.). This poem imagines the thoughts that might be going through the head of someone participating in one of these ceremonies, contemplating the meaning of the transition and how it will affect this person's life moving forward.

Were I to Dream Again this Dream

I’m standing on a grassy hill

Overlooking valleys green

And gazing at the skyward scene

Where the endless blues instill

A sense of unknown depths, marine

In their character and tone,

But hiding something all their own

Underneath the surface sheen.

Then suddenly an empty stone –

A darkened disk – obstructs the sun

And takes its time to slowly run

In front of all the light. Alone

It waits to see what work it’s done,

As floating balls of cooling light

Traverse the skies of midday night,

Purple-blue on dark, at one

With all the magic of this sight

Offered up within a dream

Where eyes can find what treasures seem

Impossible in waking flight.

 

Were I to dream again this dream,

I’d follow what the shadows show

Of lights that, in the darkness, grow

And grant us strength beneath their gleam.

 

This poem describes what I remember from a dream I had several months ago. I started writing it soon after having the dream, because the imagery just seemed so interesting. This past week, I remembered that I had started but never finished it, so I looked at it again and tried to see if I could derive some meaning from it. In the end, what I settled on was this: When all light seems to have fled and we are surrounded by darkness, that's when some other kind of light, previously unknown and unlooked-for, arises and grants us strength to help us carry on.

Whisper, Winter

 

Whisper, winter, where your winds will wander –

Over mountain, meadow, deep or shallow.

Whisper, wisdom, where the year will sunder,

Flames extinguished from the wick and tallow.

Every mile traversed will mark the marrow

Aching in the frigid cold, but follow

Every trial until the road will narrow,

Pointing toward the way where every hollow

Offers shelter from the winter storming.

Even when the snowy clouds are forming,

Somewhere else the slope of season’s arrow

Points another way, and with the morning

Comes a warmer dawn of light adorning

Summer skies of sapphire blue. I wander

Through the splintered sights of seasons’ turning.

Whisper, winter, cover summer’s thunder,

Play your part in hearts’ and climates’ churning.

 

I wrote this poem while thinking about how different this part of the year is in Kenya, compared with a place like Pennsylvania or Illinois. Winter's winds have certainly not been wandering over Nairobi. I also wanted to play around with trochaic meter a bit. For those interested in the mechanics of poetry, a poem that is in trochaic meter contains lines where the first of every two syllables is stressed. In contrast, most of what I write is in iambic meter, which is the opposite. Iambic tends to be the more natural rhythm in English, and it's the rhythm found in most of Shakespeare's work. So, I wanted to try something that was completely in trochaic meter this time.