The Lamp and Ashes IV

I no longer ask for flattery.
I do not ask for ease.
Only remain—
keep your clear gaze
on the patterned floor of my days,
on the breath that rises and falls,
on the narrow hinge where I decide.

Set your eye in the flame,
not to burn, but to reveal.
Draw your circle round my hunger
until wildness learns its key,
until want inclines to ought,
until base metal remembers light.

And when I fall—
for dust obeys its law—
grant me the plain strength to stand and sweep,
to strike the line true;
to lift the bent, shelter the battered,
restore the lost to their own face;
to guard the small with law,
to choose the quiet good over noise,
to set one small flame against the dark.

This is enchantment stripped of spectacle:
not a word flung once into air,
but a life spoken in rooms of habit,
a vow kept among dust and dishes,
a green blade through ash—
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.
So I sweep, and let the lamp judge.

The Lamp and Ashes III

O light, you were no ornament.
You were the straightedge laid against my testimony,
the surveyor’s chain drawn tight around desire,
the plumb dropped through my ribs
to hear what truth survived the speech of virtue.
You examined without anger—
as a judge weighs a witness,
as the sea tests a harbour wall.

Then I feared you—
not like thunder in the hills,
but like the first question under oath.
You uncovered the quiet frauds
filed in the docket of habit:
the courteous lie, the mercy postponed,
the sweet intoxication of being right.
My will, that bright defendant, raged and struck.

And in the inward stillness
a word lifted like smoke from hidden coals—
thelema, the hard name of will—
and with it the statute written in stars:
not licence, but allegiance—
Love is the law, love under will.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

The Lamp and Ashes II

Then the work began—
not in the hands, but in the inward grain.
I had thought myself a temple already—
finished, worthy, roofed in gold.
But you showed me roughness—
nothing monstrous, nothing grand—
only the common jut of self,
where pride snags the cloth and splits it.

So I struck at what was needless—
not in fury, but in measure:
a steady knocking in the dark,
a small gavel in the marrow
that would not grant despair its throne.
Each blow raised a quiet cloud—
motes wheeling like planets in your beam—
and I learned the hard arithmetic:
what falls away is often what I cherished.

You were an alchemist’s fire, O light.
Under your heat the leaden habits loosened,
old weights ran thin as metal in a crucible—
blackened first, then paling—
for the soul must pass through soot and salt
before it bears the blush of gold.
Still the air held drifting witness.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

The Lamp and Ashes I

I thought mystery would arrive like theatre—
a word of fire;
but mystery came as the discipline of the unseen:
a quiet hand smoothing what anger split,
mercy set stone by living stone,
the heart’s small trowel moving in silence
to hold what would fall.

So I began to carry you outward—
not as a lantern lifted for praise,
but as a hidden flame kept from wind.
I let you level my gaze
until I could meet the stranger
without hunger for rank or reward.
I learned to bow to grey hair
as one bows to snowfall—
not because it is weak,
but because it has endured.

I kept a white cloth at the waist of thought—
not a badge, but a reminder:
keep clean hands, keep humble hands,
even when the world is mud.
A beehive woke beneath my ribs,
a humming labour of care,
each small sweetness made by work,
not by talk.

When widows stood at winter’s edge,
I tried to be a door that did not slam.
When shame hung like a torn coat,
I tried to stitch dignity into the seam.

And where the common road is held by law—
that hard iron that keeps the cart from chaos—
I did not spit on it for pride’s sake;
I honoured the order that lets the weak sleep.
Yet I remembered: obedience without morality
is only a well-swept cage.
So I kept you burning—
a private tribunal of conscience,
a lamp that judges without hatred.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

A Candle for Ambiance

They won’t admit it,
but some people watch the dying
like they’re afraid they might learn something.
As if death might notice them noticing
and turn its face.

Curtains breathe apart.
The flick of a lighter,
a kettle’s shriek,
a phone buzzing with quiet verdicts.

“Ambulance again.”
“He’s outside.”
“Still no movement.”

The grief is tidy at this distance.
Contained.
No blood.
No sound.
No scent.
Only flashing lights

and the shoulder of a woman
who doesn’t wipe her eyes.

Down the street, someone stirs onions.
Steam fogs a window.
Someone lights a candle
and pretends it’s for ambiance,
an apology for not knocking.

We’ve forgotten how to enter mourning
without needing an invitation.
We’ve made grief a spectator sport —
a flickering feed,
a casserole dropped at the door.

But still —
still someone watches,
and someone cooks,
and someone texts,
and someone doesn’t know what to say,
so they say nothing,
and let the pot boil instead.

Because when death comes
and you weren’t the one beside it,
you still want the dying to know —
I saw you.
Even if only
through the window.

Litany for the Unanswered

Litany for the Unanswered
(for the six across the street)

By at this Andean height,
even stone listens.
Knees pressed to splintered pews,
they ache —
six shadows held in place
by what is practiced daily.
Six old woman whose

rosaries click.
It’s a small weather of sound,
like teeth meeting
what will not soften.
Words are given air

and hope moves with care here.
Thin as light through glass,
chaliced, lifted,
passed hand to hand.
The gate is said to open
for those who bleed.
Bleeding happens quietly,
without remark, and vows

are spoken but the sky
does not repent.

Still, the chant continues
as candles shorten themselves.
Not saints, nor fools, these six
who have learned how waiting
can feel like work.

Names are shaped by lips
for gods who never answer.
The dead feel nearer at this altitude,
close enough to hear their names.

If numbness comes,
it comes like breath.
It’s a way of staying
until the body says otherwise.