Candles Burn Out

Describe Something You Love

“Write a blurb about something you love but don’t say what it is until the end. Keep your audience guessing until you finally reveal what it was that you were talking about.”
I don’t actually know what a “blurb” might mean in this context as I associate blurbs with author endorsements on book jackets. However, this being DS 106, I felt free to reinterpret the genre of this challenge as a poem.
It is Sunday, I’m on the couch all day with a killer sinus infection (which accounts for the mood of the poem) , so I had the time to count out the pentameter (five beats per line) on my fingers and to work out the somewhat non-standard rhyme scheme (abba, cdcd, efef).
I came up two lines short of a 14 line sonnet, but I had run out of things to say, and anyway, there is such a thing as a twelve line sonnet, which I proclaim this to be.
 
candles
I started by trying to describe these candles without saying what they are. They are in silver candlesticks that come from Peter’s parents, Bill and Marion, and currently they are on the bare “lake of wood” of the dining room table.

Candles Burn Out

Two silver hands rising from the lake
of wood, fingers lightly clasping
the tapered arms reaching like the aspen
trees in fall, the way their leaves shake

aspenalive with light, forest dancers blazing–
or miniature suns, or passionflowers
incandescent as the stars and trembling,
waiting for the match, those lucent hours.

Sandy Candle They say you and I are melting wax–
our lives have leapt and flared, but in the end

Peter_candle

 only Love, that Light, will stay intact
as we blow out like candles in the wind.

 

6 thoughts on “Candles Burn Out

  1. Elaine & Charlie says:

    Beautiful. There’s a lot more love in your poem than candles alone.

    Reply
  2. Kathy Thomas says:

    Stunning that you were able to create this while dealing with a sinus infection. I love the photo of the aspen.

    Reply
  3. Kinga Biro says:

    Ah, you two romantic lovebirds aflame with creativity, ebbing and flowing your pulsating light in the evening shadows, reflecting ruby red in the ubiquitous wine glasses…

    Reply
  4. Janet says:

    A fitting poem for a dinner on a moonlit winter’s evening in the snowy Alps. I can picture you reciting this at table, Peter by your side, with the Shelleys, Byron, and friends, candle flames flickering. Too bad we have no time machine. But Goth-romance lives on…

    Reply

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