Candles are stars
in human hands:
a bit of tallow
for the Madonna.
Each one's a gift,
a silent prayer,
keeping a secret
in holy honor.
The saints repose
who knew their Lord
in mystic grace
of wood and gloss.
Their eyes partake
of radiance.
Their whisper is Sancta
Simplicitas.
Here God comes down
through ceiling cracks
as a moth heads
for flame, to fly
playing hide and seek
with a hot blade,
living in peril,
not knowing why.