Smoldering Wick

A smoldering wick...
what once was bright and flaming
smokes and smolders
barely
holding on to hope of oxygen
feed me revive me make me come alive.
In days long past
I burned for you
a light to you for nations.
A gentle breeze I embraced
as a comfort I took it
slowly
I drew from it into a
corner where i could feed myself
and hide in, from the darkness
I was meant to dispel.
Now I cower under a basket
with the smoke wafting up
the darkness that frightened
the cold that scared
the burning.
Yet a new life is breathed
Into the very soul of my souls
And a fire starts to burn
on the tip of my wick
It is barely there.
Hands come from nowhere
to everywhere and shield the burning
flame.
No cold and stormy blast will reach
the heart of my fire and the flame
that grows ever and anon.
It grows slowly still and
greater with each gentle breath
from his mouth he feeds me.
The flame still small and barely
wavering.
Not between the dark but towards the light.
He takes me from my corner
the basket topples down the
table and rests on the floor.
He moves me through the
heavy black which turns to smokey gray
and sets me on a pillar.
And there he holds his hands around me
which don’t suppress the light and
brings the world around me
to see and speak of his greatness.
So on the stand I stand anew
a token
of his loving kindness. I
Will not again retreat
to the darkened corner of myself
that suppresses the light he gives.

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

Isaiah 42:3