Are we a candle on a window sill,
or do we sit in the dark?
Are we the sun that glints gold
through tree limbs,
or do we pull the clouds across its face?
For hate and anger is easier to justify,
than love that must by necessity be lit.
A wick set alight by a heart
willing to love and forgive.
We can only do as much
as the life that is present inside.
Would we not prefer to sit burning on a sill,
than wallow in our pain in the dark?
It’s hard, but once the flame
illuminates the shadows in our house,
we see them as naught
but things that surrender to the light.
Ana Lisa de Jong
January 2018
Living Tree Poetry 