musée mia burrus

when the days get dark….

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