Candle and Smoke

A candle burns where shadows crowd the room,

Its fragile flame both guiding and deceived;

It warms the air, yet deepens further gloom,

A fleeting star no night has yet reprieved.

The heart remembers laughter edged with sigh,

Bright echoes caught in dusk of parted years;

Hope drifts like starlight trembling in the sky,

But soft it shimmers through a veil of tears.

And so imagination dares to weave

A dream half-rooted, half dissolved in mist

The mind’s dark soil where radiant visions grieve,

Yet every ghost still begs to be sun-kissed.

Thus light and shadow learn their measured part:

Twin threads entwined within a single heart.