Candle in the Window

And once upon a Christmas Eve
She rubbed her hands and covered her arms
In the snow she sat and wept.
The forest all around,
And the sky so dark above her head;
She could see her breath in the frosty air,
She her footprints in the freshly laid snow.

And she shivered in the cold;
All alone, none by her side,
So she laid down and wept,
And then she died.

Christmas morn bloomed bright and fair
Sun shining upon the winter wonderland
Like a thousand tiny jewels
Upon the porch step laid.

When the little child-face peered out
But what did she see, her face upturned in beauty
But a beauty lying in the snow
The flakes of purest snow rested gently on her pale cheeks
The frost upon her lashes.

The little one knew not what to do
A tremulous finger touched the fading red lips,
Brushed away the limp wet hair;
Then looked up and cried-
“Papa, she died!”

Christmas night in the house belonging to the porch
Sat a solemn little party of papa, mama, and the little one
All was dark without the windows, save a candle in the window
Lit to light a traveler’s path
To save a soul from dying in the snow

The little one lit a candle
And whispered, “Papa, I’ll name her Mercy.”
“Why such, my little one?” he said.
“Because, dear Daddy,” she whispered as she held the candle up to see,
“Like Mercy came and died, so did Jesus, so that we would someday see a candle in the window,
And not have to freeze under the snow.”

Open Your Eyes, Awake

I was in the dark again. I don’t know why I always sat in the dark so much. But I did. It was as if I didn’t live, couldn’t breathe. It was as if all I had to do was sit back and watch the world go running around me. I didn’t have to contribute, and I didn’t have to comment. I was a ghost. A ghost during the night, and then the light would sneak in through the drapes in that parlor that I always sat in and I would have to move again. Breathe again, eat again, speak again. When all I wanted to do was to die. This was the longest winter I had ever sat through. It was cold and harsh and dark and gloomy. But this morning the sunlight slipped its fingers through the gauze curtains and it must have touched my soul, for within my heart I felt a warmth come upon me. The slightest stirring, the tiniest shimmer of something that I thought had died long, long ago. I don’t know really what it was, just that I didn’t understand it. It was as if my heart was a wildflower and the first ray of spring sunshine had glanced upon it. But as a selfish ghost I wished it violently away. My fevered skin wished to stay fevered, my self-pity wished to stay intact; it wished to securely capture my soul and hold it within its icy grasp as long as it could, until my soul would slip out of its fingers and up into God’s welcoming arms. But I was drunk on my misery. I did not wish to let it go. It was like an aching bitterness, and to my sickened soul that bitterness seemed too sweet to give up. It was like a nectar that dripped into my glass from a summer wildflower. But the fact I overlooked was that wildflowers don’t last forever, and as the flower would die, so would the intoxication.

I forced myself to test my wobbly legs and stand up. I turned aside the white sheer of the curtain and looked outside. The storm of the night before had broken, and the rain danced and glittered like fallen stars upon the grass that was just starting to shoot up from the frozen ground of yester-days. All the little wildflowers were opening, raising their heads to the sun that would soon proclaim spring. And then the dark misery inside my soul despised the color, and the new beginning of nature. Oh, how I hated this darkness in my soul. How I hated it, how I despised it. And yet it lurked like a hungry lion, seeking to devour. Hot tears burned my eyes and a choking sob stuck fast in my throat. I walked to the empty, cold mantle-piece and leaned my feverish brow upon the clammy stone. A tear dropped from my eye and landed in the ashes in the fireplace. And then it was gone. Soaked into the dry dirtiness. The Old Book was resting open on the mantle where my brow had rested and I blew the dust off the open page. It puffed out into the dank air and settled onto the Persian carpet. I knew instinctively that that carpet smelt like dust. And then I looked at the words. The only words I had read for weeks. “Rejoice always; again, I say, rejoice.” And a pang like an arrow of God shot straight through my heart. How much time had I wasted sitting slouched in that armchair, watching the raindrops, and then the snow flakes, and then more forlorn raindrops hit that window and roll down. Wince from the morning light and crave the darkness of stormy days. Oh how much I had missed. The mornings with hot buttered blueberry muffins and honey scones, the steam of my favorite breakfast tea hot on my lips, the scent of fresh-fallen rain, the crunching of autumn leaves, the nipping of the cold against my cheeks and nose, the friendly pink it brought to my face. And I looked up into the mirror above the fireplace, and I saw myself-cold, hard, lifeless. It didn’t surprise me that everyone I had ever loved had fled from my presence. I had become a monster. A monster in flesh, and a ghost haunting the halls. What could I ever do to show them that I really wasn’t a ghost, I was just lost. That I really wasn’t a monster, I was just hurt.

So I walked with assurance out of that dismal parlor and out into the quiet hall. I would get a bath, and put on a fresh dress, and then I would see what Mrs. Tilley had brewing in the kitchen for a long-awakened girl to chew on. And then, I decided, I would go dance in the dew. Laugh in the rain, and then, then maybe I would feel more alive again.

Quietly I'll Slip Away

I’ll sit in the silence and crave what it holds
A vast, indiscernible mystery
I watch the twilight lengthen in darkness,
The softness of the sky meld into the deep blues only seen for a moment
And for once I wish the twilight would stay
And I wouldn’t feel the large darkness that the many points of distant starlight seek to illuminate
In this quiet house I’m the only one breathing
The only one who craves the ticking and echoing of a clock in the stillness
It’s only in such a deep silence that I can truly feel myself think
That I can run words and jumbled thoughts into pictures and landscapes, strung like a ribbon across a heart in love with thickened silence
But such is only to be grasped and never held
How can the mass of human population be content to rush about and worry so
Is their conscience too weighted for them to listen to the silence, listen to their own heart – listen for God’s voice
And so they look in the reflection of a dimly illumined glass and despise what they see and shrink from what can only take a still and quiet heart to hear
I look in that glass
And I see a girl
A girl with long curls draped like a robe over her shoulders
Fathomless eyes of the depths of the richest tree, longing to hear the silence, see the crocus, feel the Winter’s breath
I see a face, although blotched with imperfection, clear, different, still
But the part that I cannot see is the part closest to me
It’s the part I long to understand, long for it to see and hear all it can
It beats with palpitations, but so imperceptibly that I cannot feel like this body owns a living pulse
It’s no use to ask me what I feel
I only long
I know not for what
Or when or where or how
I only see the window
And as I see myself in the reflection, so I am
I may be tangible to your eyes, your arms, your heart,
But to myself I’m just a reflection
Not even in a looking glass
I see right through my hair, my lips, my eyes, my hands
To the ground beneath the window
The shafts of grass that quiver in the midnight air
The leaves strewn carelessly by the wind upon the ground
The silhouette of the dead trees, after they’ve been stripped of all their autumn leaves
Faintly I see myself
And quietly I’ll slip away.