Light and Ash

These are the times

Of the one white light;

These are times
When the source

Is more important

Than brightness,

Where those of us

Caught in the glare

Stand dazed and dazzled,

Casting pitiful shadows.

Scattered,

Reflected and refracted.

Spectral colours, like ghosts,

Cover our faces and hands.

Subtle shades,

Temperature,

Intensity,

Luminosity,

Nuance the purity of white.

Nothing is perfect it seems.

The piercing searchlight

Sees all it illuminates

And we have no hiding place.

We are given to believe

That brilliance alone

Creates reflected glory

Far brighter than the beam

Of ordinary fools

Like us.

We are meant to linger

To bask, bow down beneath.

Denied incandescence

Or any fire at all

What little light we own

Is taken, extinguished,

Put to other uses, concealed

With our ragged souls

And our ragged souls' black ash

Under a bushel of lies.

© BH 2015

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National Poetry Day? Did someone mention light? Damn, missed it by thirteen minutes!

Typical of trying for a deadline, sundry adjustments follow. But then nothing is ever really finished, is it?