Too Near

A river of genuflections

leads every bow

to the beginning,

when the sun paid obeisance

to a dark mothering.

This lamp did not light itself.

A fiery Otherness touched me.

Now tell me, friend,

is the flame

that annihilates my heart

yours or mine?

All I know is, our souls

are passed from wick to wick,

and we are kindled by

an ancient gratitude,

a holocaust of moths

dancing too near the candle.

Art: 'Burning Butterflies 25,' Mat Collishaw