POEM BY CANDLELIGHT

Photo/collage by S. Auberle

Wind rising high and fast tonight,

big storms rolling through.

Five candles blaze on the hearth like a prayer.

I like the way fire burns away the years

the way it takes me back to who we were then,

how it makes me want to ask

and did I make you happy, love?

I was happy then, in summer storms

back in those southern hills

when we sat in the dark, like tonight,

children close and warm in our laps,

happy, even when I knew

after every rain the well pump would quit

and we'd be out there in the night, drenched,

you trying to fix it, me holding a flashlight

both asking why we ever moved to the country

but then leaves would paint their wet gold

on every tree all the way down to our creek

and in the new, shiny morning we'd hear geese

calling from Jessie's farm and we'd laugh

at their honky tonk music while all around us

people we would soon mourn

still walked in that astonishing light.

- mimi