Cemetery Candle

Written late 2010, early 2011, based on a photo of a girl holding a candle in a cemetery


Light a candle for the dead
And light one for the living
Light a candle for remembering
And for forgetting 
Light one for forgiving

The dead sleep lonely in May,
Silent today- the girl stands
By the stone, her path of
Loveliness crossing over

To the loneliness of the dead
A bridge between, to a world 
Unseen- in her fingers she holds
A candle not yet lit she's


The keeper of the flame between
The dead and the living giving youth
To the memory of the dead so like the flame
It will burn anew and not fade away

Flames devouring the wax
Yet flames burning time away
Putting the memory of those
Who lie here into a sunny day
That of youth's perpetual May