Flames

More flames, for the coming days of failing light—
(These in a monastery in Crete.)

I shall light candles everywhere. At evening table, in orange-painted mission churches, in glass hurricane globes reflected in the glass of a cold window, against the night.

A bumper-sticker asks, how do you measure a life?

Maybe through the light it sheds on others, I wonder? In hundreds of thousands of kilowatts, if one lives faithfully and well.

I am reminded of Buddha's teaching, too—how do you weigh an elephant?

How can you weigh a large elephant? Load it on a boat and draw a line to mark how deep the boat sinks into the water. Then take out the elephant and load the boat with stones until it sinks to the same depth, and weigh the stones.

How do you weigh a life, then? I think the answer must be much the same. Stone by stone. Word by word. Or, igniting, flame by flame by flame.


image: Arkadi Monastery / Moni Arkadiou. Candles in the church. Photo by Wouter Hagens.