Close to the source
of heat and cold,
close to the source of being —
stars at night, pens that don’t write
as temperatures dip below freezing

_____________________

Whichever direction we stretch
we draw more surely
into the circle of purpose —
we are here to be warm,
we are here to share light
and we are here to be
the great testimony
to joy, and to the insistence of life
on burning ever true,
the flame that glows and grows
and won’t consume.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 15, 2017