Votive Candles and Holy Water
A forgiven pauper’s love for priests,
the shoddy, who previously took a somber
view
of having requests denied.
Illness cured now with a washable chase of
holy water.
The supreme heat and flame from flammable
wicks,
a superb transcendence into absolute
trust.
The world’s richest persons,
controlled by forces outside themselves,
while petitioning for justice within,
who thought they would never be fooled by
designs for living,
designs for prayer,
until their hearts were changed
with new beliefs indicative of dry waxy
modes
and wet pardonable fonts.
Within the tradition of votive candles’
trance,
flourished accounts of sin and redemption
are spoken.
Starlight has the virtue
of influencing a high measure of devotion.
Most of us spend the majority of our
lives
trying to master reassurance.
Solemn rituals invented with living
water
but mostly with flash,
even as problems explode,
hold the most appeal for
those who beseech mercy for ourselves
and our most beloved dead.
Linda Imbler is an internationally
published poet, an avid reader, classical guitar player, and a practitioner of
both Yoga and Tai Chi. In, addition, she helps her husband, a Luthier,
build acoustic guitars. She lives in Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A. where she
enjoys her 200-gallon saltwater reef tank wherein resides her 24 year old
yellow tang. Linda’s poetry collections include nine published
paperbacks: Big Questions, Little Sleep First Edition, Big
Questions, Little Sleep Second Edition; Lost and Found; Red
Is The Sunrise; Bus Lights; Travel Sight; Spica’s
Frequency; Doubt and Truth; A Mad Dance; and Twelvemonth. Soma
Publishing has published her four e-book collections, The Sea’s Secret
Song; Pairings, a hybrid of short fiction and poetry; That
Fifth Element; and Per Quindecim. Examples of Linda’s poetry
and a listing of publications can be found at lindaspoetryblog.blogspot.com.
Linda has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and seven Best Of The Nets.