When the Last Light Falters

The taper dwindles in its brazen stand,

Its light diminished to a trembling thread.

I marvel how this force I cannot command

Makes ash of all the substance it is fed.

See how the blaze that warmed my room so bright

Now flickers, weakens, scarce sustains its glow.

What governance attends this waning light?

What sovereignty dictates it must be so?

I kept my vigil through the darkling hours

And watched the flame perform its office here.

To burn, consume, exhaust its given powers,

Then yield to that which all the living fear.

Methinks the fire is teacher unto me,

Instructing in the art of letting go.

For what I treasured most, my certainty,

Burns low as does this candle burning low.

The faith I held as constant as the sun,

The zeal that once did animate my days,

The passions I accounted never done

All guttered out like these expiring rays.

Yet in this ending find I have no despair,

No cause to rail against the coming cold.

For what has burned has had its season fair,

And what must cease has done what it was told.

The final spark ascends, then disappears.

I sit in darkness, neither grieved nor blessed,

But reconciled at last, after these years,

That even fire was made to come to rest.