Be a Lantern – a villanelle
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone’s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
(Rumi)
When the way is deeply dark,
and the world indifferent to your plight,
I’ll be a lantern, be an ark.
Steady handed, I will rock
you gently on waves of sparkling light,
while the sea gapes deep and dark,
And once across, however stark
and shrouded grey the view it will be bright
by lantern, warm by ark.
I listen for a word, a mark
that you are ready to go on. And right
when your voice escapes the dark
I take your hand – we walk-
and as the day will surely follow night,
you are my lantern, I your ark.
When sun at last ignites a spark
you sing ‘not giving up on you, will fight
my boundless deep and blackest dark,
and be your lantern, be your ark.’
2014