Candles for the Returning

I set out the photos in the fading light

Bread on the linen, flowers soft and white

Your name's in the corners of the evening air

Like a quiet prayer, still waiting there

I hear you in the creak of the old front door

In the spoon against the mug, in the steps across the floor

You moved on like a river

Into the dark

But something of your laughter

Stayed inside my heart

So I light the dusk and let it glow

For all the love I still would know

If memory is a house

Then you live in the rooms

Voices that not you truly loved are still glimpsed

Lay down the day like a letter held close

Lay down the bread, the roses, the ghost

And I am not empty, only tender with time

Carrying your echoes like a slow-lived chime

So I light the dusk and you let it glow

Eyes to it now

If memory is a house

Then you live in the rooms

Voices that never truly

Live to still blend

Stay here in the hush

Where the candle bends

Love does not vanish, it changes its hands

And in the soft blue hour when the shadows start

I find you alive in the ache of my heart