Nine Fires

Time's not the prison that you think

Painting: “Nocturne in Black and Gold” by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).

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I saw nine fires move in mystic dance. 
But I was tired. Texting. 
Texting you and too tired
to mark those fires' dance. 
They must have swept
the night sky like fox tails,
crept in kingly color—
a rose plume bloomed violet—
while at my fingertips
a solitary sentence sent 
in half-sleep's silence:
Time's not the prison that you think. 

Time is the clipped and braided wick 
within an oil lamp’s orange glow—
ever burning, ever low.
Whatever man or beast beyond
dim time’s light lies,
it is the darkness that constrains your sight
not the feeble flicker of the lamp.
The timeless dark, oblivion,
would turn eternity to naught
except that time still pulses on.

And in the distant misty dark
nine fires burn as our lights sleep.
Within the chariot of God,
all light’s contained, all fires keep.

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