Flickering Candle

Light fractures, as it filters through Jasmine a soft splayed light on the wrinkled skin of an old man's hands it brings warmth to his mornings under the vines, wrapped and tangled overhead Each day he shuffles to his hand made rocking chair to consume time and the passing of his life that is fading away, like a flickering candle that's melting with his memory, of burying his wife he spends hours in conversation with his loneliness before taking a deep long breath exhaling away his tears, in a quiet pause with trembling hands, reaches for a pipe his wife gave him and searches for tobacco he keeps in his overalls she would complain each time he blew smoke through the vines, as if connecting to something beyond with an offering she would say...stop that he laughed in amusement, then do it again looking over to see if he could catch a smile during midday, he pulls weeds and tosses seeds to birds they seem to understand when to show up as they eat he'll clean the birdbath his wife loved so much when she would watch them flap their wings like a dance in the water at sunset, he returns to his chair to continue his conversation until dark before he leaves he always looks back and says...are you coming 8/17/17