Red Candles

      
      
Red candles on the mantle shelf      
measuring  time together      
red wax consumed to white,      
not all they seem these three.      
Not wax of bees as in church      
cheap paraffin,sickly,      
blue smoke when snuffed out      
not scents of paschal candles      
honey and pollen dust      
carrying prayers to willing oak      
and kneeling supplications.      
Mundane white dipped in red      
burning slow  . . . . . .          
black soot on the cobweb ceiling      
truth and time destroyed.