Candeling Man The hour was wrong when I woke again, Too late for the bell, too soon for the crow, The room still held what had once been said In a language the walls would not let go. Your absence sat where the candle leaned, Its wick bent low, its flame unsure, And I learned how silence feeds on heat Till even fire must learn to endure. I followed the glow where it thinned to thread, Down corridors time had sealed with ash, Each door a promise I never kept, Each step a question I could not ask. Some things burn best when unnamed and still, Some truths live longer unspoken. I am the Candeling Man, if you know what I mean, When the fire climbs slow and tall, Not consumed, not spared, but standing between The shadow, the spark, the fall. I do not flee when the crown ignites, Nor beg the dark to understand, I hold the flame the way night holds breath. I am the Candeling Man. There are marks the blade forgets to leave, Cuts that sing without breaking skin, I have worn them like borrowed coats Till they learned the shape I’m in. What was taken left no empty place, Only rooms that echo when crossed, And I mistook the sound of my own steps For the voice of something lost. They say the tallest ones burn first, Seen for miles when the wind is right, A pillar dressed in borrowed stars Teaching night the shape of light. But what survives is not the blaze, Nor the fall when the crown gives way, It is the quiet underneath the flame That remembers how to stay. I am the Candeling Man, and the fire knows How close it may come to bone, It feeds on what I no longer need And leaves me standing alone. I scorch no ground I wish to keep, I warm no hand that asks for more, I burn the past where it clings too tight And leave the door a door. If you see smoke where I pass at dawn, Do not ask what ended here, Some forests speak in widening rings That only fire can clear. What grows next does not resemble what was, Nor does it answer why, It simply lifts its head from the dark And learns how not to die. So call me nothing, call me through, Call me when the night stands still, I am not ash, nor prophecy, Nor the sum of my own will. I remain where the flame learns height, Neither gone nor wholly known, A light that does not beg for sky. I am the Candeling Man.
