Once I met a boy who could light up

Every candle in the wide world.

He took his match and struck it across

The cheek of the Burning Sun.

Then he flew from town to town

Setting every candle aglow

So that the Earth shone brightly

Rivaling all the stars of the universe.

But when he came to me

My candle would never light

So engulfed was I in Lady Night's embrace.

Trapped within mercury dreams

My vision blurred by liquid moonlight.

He kneeled over me silently,

His breath a fragile mist

That swirled about my shadowed face.

Then, his kisses like night drops in the silver sky

Fell upon my eyes in a shower of lost dreams.

He whispered softly into my ear,

The fiery match still cradled in his palm:

“Meet me beneath the tree

Where the stars fell from eternity."

Then he flew once more,

For there were candles snuffed out

By the Bitter Wind and the Solemn Frost.

I ventured forth from Lady Night's fortress

Across marble seas and lavender fields.

I found the great tree that glowed

With all the fire of the heavens.

Gnarled and brittle, the tree was older

Than all who inhabit the earth.

Dying stars would descend

And rest upon its branches as fireflies

For it is the mother of the first fruit

That spilled its white seeds to grow

Upon the sky's arc to become stars.

I sat there underneath the Great Mother's roots

Clutching a soft white candle

Waiting for my love to return.

He came, clouds cloaked about his body,

Curls the color of deep earth framed his face.

He held me, and I held him

My candle shone the brightest.

But the Wind was bitter

And Envy more bitter still.

She swooped down and plucked away

The little flame that danced on his match.

I watched as his tender eyes turned gray

And he gasped,

His form dissolving into ash.

The ash merged with the ancient soils

And he was lost to me

Forever.

My candle dimmed like a fluttering heartbeat,

But I would not let it die.

I kept his love burning,

The white wax grasping the foot of the tree.

In tears, I melted into the earth

Yet the fire kept burning

Even when Lady Night approached.

Engulfing me once more in her cold embrace.

The little flame still flickered there

For the dark could never touch it.

Fireflies approached it and were healed

Shimmering with intense bursts of silver and gold.

They were stars once more!

Yet they were distraught by the tragedy of love.

They wept more mournfully than the Sullen Rain

For their tears fell in showers of ember

And seared the earth like molten enamel.

Deep in the tree's bosom,

I could hear their cries of sadness

And was redeemed.

For to be mourned by the stars

Was to be purified.

Suddenly, my candle glowed

With an opalescent splendor

And became the heart of the world;

The gray earth where my love now resides.

And I lay there still

Wrapped in fluid dreams and the tears of stars,

The inner light in all the wide world.

“Release from a Mercury Dream” or “The Match Boy”

May 14, 2008