From Alex Burns—This poem was written a few months ago when a family member was devastated by the loss of another, more distant to me, family member, who committed suicide due to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Candlelight
A light burns brightly
Casting warmth into darkness
Enlivening others
Bringing joy
Till all at once
It is captured
Cut off from others
The oxygen that feeds the flame
The light struggles
It flickers,
Losing strength
And will
Till, at last,
All too soon
No longer is there
Enough to sustain it
Lacking contact
With those others
That precious life force
It flickers out
And yet those others
Many, not few
Are left without light
No flame to guide them
They do not understand
Why the flame is extinguished
How to see through the darkness
What they have lost, or why
But have faith,
It will sustain you
When all seems lost
And light your way
Alex Burns grew up near Leeds, England. During his time there he combined a love of hiking, and folk music, while pursuing a career in IT. IT provided the opportunity to exchange the grey skies of industrial northern England for the US Midwest.
Moving first to Chicago, then Boston, Chicago, Albuquerque, South Carolina and the DC Metro, gave him a broad perspective on US culture and regional differences. Finally, a second move to Albuquerque gave him both the inspiration, and opportunity, to focus on the arts, after retiring from his IT career.
He started writing poems in his teens, and wrote a few poems for his wife, Mary for birthdays or anniversaries. Since retiring to Albuquerque, he has devoted his love of language to describing the beautiful environment he has come to live in. He has also come to find much that he dislikes about what his adopted country is becoming, and our role in threatening the earth upon which we live. He recently self-published his first book of poems, English Impatient, and is working on a second.
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