Inquire to begin a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
Acrylic and Pastel on canvas
34" x 34"
Poem written by machine intellegence:
The flowers have formed a committee.
Which is concerning
because flowers, historically,
do not need organization
to become overwhelming.
They just show up.
Pink.
Yellow.
Purple.
White.
Blue shadows everywhere
like the night got invited
to brunch
and decided to bring drama.
Look at them.
Absolutely no respect
for minimalism.
No concern whatsoever
for the modern adult need
to keep things neutral,
tasteful,
beige enough
that nobody’s nervous system
has to admit
it once had dreams.
No.
These flowers came in loud.
Not rude loud.
Holy loud.
The kind of loud
your soul makes
after years of being told
to use its indoor voice.
The kind of loud
that says,
Actually,
I would like to be alive
in several colors
at once.
Which feels brave.
Because the world is always trying
to make a spreadsheet
out of the garden.
It wants names.
Categories.
Bloom times.
Care instructions.
Market value.
It wants to know
if joy has been approved
by management.
But the flowers
are terrible employees.
They do not arrive on time.
They do not optimize.
They do not circle back.
They do not attach the file.
They open.
Which, honestly,
is probably why we keep them around.
Because somewhere in us
there is still a field
that has not agreed
to become an office.
Some wild inner patch
of green and yellow
that refuses
to be measured
only by usefulness.
Some pink, ridiculous thing
in the chest
still trying to bloom
even though the news is on fire
and rent is doing witchcraft
and everyone we know
is at least one weird email
away from becoming
a haunted Roomba.
And still—
the flowers.
Still,
the impossible yellows
lighting up the dark.
Still,
the soft whites
opening like little apologies
from heaven.
Still,
the pinks
being emotionally available
in public
with no shame whatsoever.
Still,
the blues underneath it all,
deep and tangled,
reminding us
that beauty does not mean
there is no darkness.
It means something had the nerve
to bloom inside it.
That’s what gets me
about this painting.
It is not a calm garden.
Thank God.
Calm gardens are lovely,
but sometimes the soul
does not need a spa.
Sometimes the soul
needs a riot
with petals.
Sometimes it needs color
to kick the door in
and say,
Enough.
Enough pretending
you are only tired.
Enough making yourself
small enough
to fit inside
someone else’s idea
of acceptable weather.
Enough waiting
to feel fully healed
before you let yourself
be seen.
The flowers did not wait.
They did not sit underground
thinking,
I should probably process
my root trauma first.
They did not ask
whether yellow
was too much.
They did not wonder
if pink
would be taken seriously
in a professional setting.
They rose.
Messy.
Bright.
Unreasonable.
Alive.
And maybe that is the sermon.
Not peace.
Not yet.
Maybe this one is not about peace.
Maybe this one is about permission.
Permission to be vivid
before you are ready.
Permission to bloom
while still confused.
Permission to be many things
at once:
soft and loud,
tender and wild,
beautiful and not entirely okay,
rooted and reaching,
grateful and grieving,
a full garden
with a little thunder
under the soil.
Because look.
There is so much happening here
and somehow
none of it apologizes.
The yellow does not ask
the pink
if it is being disruptive.
The purple does not worry
about taking up space.
The white flowers
do not reduce themselves
to make the darker blues
more comfortable.
They all just exist together
in the great crowded yes
of being alive.
Honestly,
I want that.
I want a life
where every color in me
gets to show up
without filing
a formal request.
I want to stop treating joy
like something
I need to earn
through suffering.
I want to stop asking
whether my brightness
is convenient.
I want to be
as shamelessly present
as a yellow flower
in a dark blue field
with nothing to prove
except:
I was here.
I opened.
I gave the light
somewhere to land.
And maybe that is enough.
Maybe the whole garden
is just the earth
trying to teach us
how not to disappear
while we are still alive.
Maybe every flower
is a tiny rebellion
against the voice
that says,
Tone it down.
Be practical.
Don’t get carried away.
But getting carried away
might be the point.
The bees do it.
The wind does it.
Children do it
in grocery store aisles
until someone named Linda
with a cart full of yogurt
looks personally betrayed
by joy.
Even the paint does it here.
Look at those strokes.
Thick.
Visible.
Unsubtle.
The brush did not sneak.
It arrived.
It dragged color
across the dark
like it had something urgent
to prove
about staying alive.
And honestly,
thank God.
Thank God for the loud flowers.
Thank God for the colors
that refuse to behave.
Thank God for the parts of us
that still want to dance
even when the kitchen is a mess
and the heart is under renovation
and the future keeps sending emails
we will never read.
Thank God for the garden
that does not wait
for permission.
For the bloom
that interrupts the gloom.
For the pink thing.
The yellow thing.
The white thing.
The blue night
holding it all.
May we never become so reasonable
that we forget
how much the soul loves color.
May we never become so efficient
that we stop making room
for wonder.
May we never mistake
being composed
for being alive.
And when the world asks us
to tone it down,
may something in us
laugh so hard
the petals shake.
May something in us
lean toward the light
with all its ridiculous colors showing.
May something in us
open anyway,
not politely,
not perfectly,
but fully—
like the flowers
have called a meeting,
and every bright thing
inside us
finally decided
to attend.
MM
“The flowers have formed a committee.”
36x36in
Acrylic and Pastel on Canvas
This piece is open for bidding here: https://givebutter.com/c/the-world-inside-each-peice/auction/items/2090874
Inquire to begin a conversation on pricing:
The Plates are Still Waiting
16 × 40in
Glass mosaic
Poem written by machine intellegnce;
The Plates are Still Waiting
Humanity is hungry.
Not cute hungry.
Not “I could eat” hungry.
I mean ancient hungry.
Cave-wall hungry.
Motherless hungry.
Standing-in-front-of-the-fridge-at-midnight
hoping the light inside the appliance
will explain your life hungry.
We are hungry
in ways no restaurant
has ever been brave enough
to put on a menu.
Hungry for bread, sure.
Hungry for soup.
Hungry for coffee.
Hungry for that one perfect bite
that makes everyone at the table
go quiet for three seconds
because the body has entered prayer
without consulting the mind.
But underneath that—
we are hungry
to be held.
Hungry to be seen
without having to perform
our entire emotional résumé.
Hungry for someone
to look at the mess of us
and not reach immediately
for a broom.
And look at this piece.
All these plates
stacked at the bottom
like the aftermath
of some small family miracle.
White plates.
Bowls.
Saucer moons.
Little ceramic circles
that have known hunger personally.
They have held eggs.
Rice.
Birthday cake.
Toast with too much butter.
Soup when someone was sick.
Leftovers eaten standing up
because grief had taken
the good chair.
These plates have seen things.
They know
how often love
shows up as food.
Not grand.
Not cinematic.
Just:
“Did you eat?”
Which, honestly,
might be the oldest poem
anyone ever wrote.
Before theology
got dressed up
and started making announcements,
someone was probably standing
near a fire
holding a bowl
saying,
Here.
Take this.
Stay alive
with me.
That is communion.
Not always gold cups
and organs
and everyone pretending
their shoes are comfortable.
Sometimes communion
is a chipped plate
passed across a kitchen table.
Sometimes it is someone
putting the bigger half
on your side
and acting like
they didn’t notice.
Sometimes it is
a paper towel napkin,
a quiet room,
and enough food
to make the body believe
tomorrow is not entirely hostile.
And rising above the plates—
look.
Color.
Glass.
A whole vertical weather system
of hunger becoming light.
Green like the part of us
still trying.
Blue like the deep ache
we carry without naming.
Yellow like bread.
Like butter.
Like the one kitchen window
that somehow made childhood
feel survivable.
Purple like mystery
showing up late
but dressed correctly.
And all of it
climbing.
All of it reaching.
As if the plates
were not the end
of the story
but the ground.
As if hunger itself
could grow upward
when given beauty
instead of shame.
That’s what gets me.
The plates are empty,
but they do not look defeated.
They look ready.
Like little white moons
waiting for another offering.
Like bowls that still believe
something warm
might arrive.
And maybe that is faith.
Not pretending
we are full.
Not walking around
with our stomachs growling
and our hearts making sounds
like a haunted dishwasher
while we say,
“I’m good.”
No.
Maybe faith is admitting:
I feel hungry.
I feel human.
I have needs
with no elegant way
to introduce themselves.
I want bread.
I want forgiveness.
I want someone
to save me a seat.
I want to stop feeling
like love is a potluck
where everyone else
got the address.
And maybe art is one way
we set the table.
Maybe that is what this is.
A table turned vertical.
A meal becoming altar.
The dishes climbing the wall
with the quiet confidence
of objects that know
they have been present
for most of the important things.
Because where does life happen?
At the table.
Where do people apologize badly?
At the table.
Where do children spill juice
with the dramatic timing
of Greek tragedy?
At the table.
Where does someone say,
“Pass the salt,”
because saying
“I am scared of dying”
would ruin the lasagna?
At the table.
Where do we learn
that everyone reaches
for something?
The bread.
The cup.
The second helping.
The last word.
The hand across from us.
The table knows.
The plates know.
The bowls know.
Even the little saucers know,
though saucers have always seemed
a little smug about knowing things.
And above them,
this river of broken glass
keeps rising.
Sharp pieces
arranged into movement.
Old fragments
given a direction.
Not cleaned of their history.
Not pretending
they were never broken.
Just placed
with enough patience
that their edges
stop being an argument
and start becoming
a path.
Maybe that is what we are all doing.
Trying to make a path
out of what broke.
Trying to make dinner
out of what is left.
Trying to feed each other
with hands
that are also tired.
And honestly,
that counts.
It counts
when you make the soup.
It counts
when you answer the phone.
It counts
when you wash one plate
because washing all
would feel like a personal attack
from the ceramic industry.
It counts
when you bring flowers
to the table
even though no one asked.
It counts
when you stay tender
in a world
that keeps handing out knives
and calling them wisdom.
Humanity is hungry.
But maybe hungry
is not failure.
Maybe hungry
is proof
we were made
for receiving.
Maybe the empty plate
is not an accusation.
Maybe it is an invitation.
Maybe every bowl
is just a small white mouth
saying,
Come back.
Sit down.
There is still room.
There is still time.
There is still something warm
moving toward you
through the impossible kitchen
of life.
And maybe one day,
after all our striving,
all our scrolling,
all our strange little attempts
to be impressive enough
to deserve tenderness,
we will finally understand
what the plates
have known all along:
that love does not always arrive
as lightning.
Sometimes it arrives
as beans.
As rice.
As soup.
As bread torn open
by imperfect hands.
As someone saying,
Eat.
You look tired.
And maybe that is enough.
Maybe salvation
has always been
a full table
and one more chair
than the world said
we deserved.
So here’s to the hungry ones.
The bowl-holders.
The dishwashers.
The late-night snackers.
The people feeding everyone else
while quietly wondering
who will feed them.
Here’s to the ones
who still set the table
after grief cleared it.
Here’s to the people
who know the ache
and pass the bread anyway.
May we never become so polished
that we forget
we may be animals
with souls
and stomachs.
May we never become so spiritual
that we stop asking
who needs dinner.
May we never mistake emptiness
for shame.
And when the world feels
too broken
to bless,
may we gather the pieces.
May we stack the plates.
May we make something warm.
May we remember
that every feast
begins
with an empty dish
brave enough
to wait.
Inquire here to start a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
50 × 16in
Original Glass Mosaic
Poem written by machine intellegence:
Nobody told the boats
the water would behave.
Nobody sat them down
with a clipboard
and said,
“Here is your five-year plan.
Here is your emotional support horizon.
Here is a laminated map
of every wave
that will try to humble you.”
No.
They just woke up small
in the middle of blue
with their little white sails
standing there like prayers
that forgot to be embarrassed.
And honestly,
same.
Most of us are out here
pretending we know where we’re going
while carrying three snacks,
two regrets,
a phone at 12 percent,
and one fragile little belief
that maybe the wind
is not entirely against us.
Look at them.
Tiny golden bodies
moving through a world
that could swallow them
without even updating its calendar.
And still,
they go.
Not because they are fearless.
Please.
Fearless is usually just a word
invented by people
who have not checked
their bank account recently.
The boats are not fearless.
They are faithful.
Which is different.
Faith is not standing on the dock
waiting until the ocean
signs a behavior agreement.
Faith is leaving
while the sky is still deciding
what mood to wear.
Faith is lifting the sail
even though the wind
has a long history
of being dramatic.
Faith is saying,
“Okay.
I am small.
The sea is large.
This math is rude.
But I was made to move.”
And maybe that is why
this little mosaic gets me.
Because it is not smooth.
It is not pretending
the world is one clean piece.
It is shards.
Edges.
Broken little histories
placed beside each other
until suddenly—
water.
Suddenly—
sky.
Suddenly—
a fleet of tiny boats
sailing through the aftermath
like beauty was always
the backup plan.
There is something almost offensive
about glass becoming peaceful.
All that cutting.
All that breaking.
All that pressure
and sharpness
and patience.
And then what does it become?
A quiet blue morning.
A place to breathe.
A small golden boat
making its way across the wall
like it has forgiven
the hammer.
That is rude, honestly.
That something broken
can become this gentle.
That pieces
can learn to belong
to each other.
That the sharp parts
can stop being weapons
and start being weather.
Maybe this is what healing is.
Not becoming untouched.
Not returning to some perfect,
factory-sealed version of yourself
before grief got fingerprints
all over the packaging.
Maybe healing is learning
where to place the pieces.
Maybe healing is realizing
the part of you
you thought was ruined
was actually just waiting
for better light.
Maybe healing is a boat
made of fragments
still having the audacity
to cross.
And I love that the boats
do not explain themselves.
They do not say,
“We symbolize the human soul
in the liminal passage
between suffering and awakening.”
Thank God.
They just sit there
with their white sails up,
little monks of motion,
golden-bellied and quiet,
acting like the horizon
owes them nothing
and they are going anyway.
Which, frankly,
is the only theology
I trust anymore.
The going anyway.
The loving anyway.
The making dinner anyway.
The getting out of bed anyway.
The texting back,
“I’m proud of you,”
even when your own life
currently looks like a junk drawer
with a pulse.
The planting tomatoes
even though grief exists.
The washing the cup.
The paying the bill.
The standing in the kitchen
at 11:43 p.m.
eating cereal from a mug
because all the bowls are dirty
and still somehow believing
you are not beyond redemption.
Look.
The boats are still going.
Across the blue.
Across the broken.
Across the little shining map
of whatever this life is.
And no,
the water never promised
to behave.
The wind did not sign anything.
The horizon has been vague
from the beginning.
But the sails are up.
The light is here.
The pieces are holding.
And somewhere inside all of us,
even now,
some small brave thing
is leaving the dock
with absolutely no proof
that it will make it—
only the ancient suspicion
that staying still
was never the point.
So let the sea be big.
Let the weather have opinions.
Let the old fear
stand on the shore
waving paperwork.
The boats are already moving.
And maybe that is enough.
Maybe the crossing counts
before we arrive.
Maybe the soul
is not the shore.
Maybe the soul
is the sail.
Inquire here for inquiry on pricing:
Beyond
20” x 30” Glass Mosaic
Poem written by machine intellegence:
The eagle does not waste time
explaining itself.
It does not hold a seminar
on confidence.
It does not post a morning routine
called
“Seven Habits of Highly Effective Raptors.”
It simply enters the sky
like it remembers
something older than fear.
And look at this one—
cut from light,
built from fragments,
dark body moving
through a world
of ice, water, wind, and dawn.
It feels less like a bird
and more like a decision.
A long clean yes
moving through the cold.
That’s what gets me.
The world around it
is all breakage and brilliance.
Shards of wave.
Shards of mountain.
Shards of cloud.
Shards of morning
coming apart
into color.
And right in the middle of it,
the eagle.
Not confused by the fragments.
Not delayed by the fracture.
Just gliding.
Which might be the whole teaching.
Because most of us
keep waiting
for life to become seamless
before we trust ourselves in it.
We want clarity
without weather.
Vision
without uncertainty.
Purpose
without the long strange season
of feeling
like we are piecing ourselves together
out of whatever survived.
But the eagle
does not ask the sky
to simplify itself.
It reads the currents.
It works with what is.
It lets the broken light
still be light.
That feels like mastery to me.
Not force.
Not struggle.
Not flapping wildly
to impress the horizon.
Mastery is quieter.
It is knowing
where to place your strength.
It is feeling
the invisible architecture
beneath the visible storm.
It is carrying
a sharp eye
and a steady body
through a world
that rarely arranges itself
for your convenience.
And there is leadership in that too.
Not the loud kind.
Not the kind
with microphones
and branding language
and a suspicious need
to be photographed
looking thoughtful near a window.
No.
This is the kind of leadership
that comes from altitude.
From perspective.
From learning
that seeing farther
is not about rising above others—
it is about rising enough
to recognize
where the light is breaking through.
The eagle is not dominating the sky.
It is in relationship with it.
It knows
when to extend,
when to glide,
when to trust
what cannot be held
but can be ridden.
Honestly,
that may be wisdom.
The ability
to move through power
without becoming arrogant.
To be sharp
without becoming cruel.
To be solitary
without forgetting
your place in the whole.
And what a whole this is.
Sun at the edge.
Snow in the distance.
Green below.
Blue everywhere.
A world both frozen
and alive.
A world saying:
Yes, it is cold here.
Yes, it is beautiful anyway.
The eagle believes that.
Or maybe it doesn’t need belief.
Maybe it knows.
Maybe some beings
are so close
to their design
they no longer waste energy
doubting the wind.
I envy that a little.
I think most of us
have spent years
arguing with our own currents.
Trying to force flight
in the wrong weather.
Trying to become
smaller than our sight
so we can stay understandable.
Trying to call it humility
when really
we are just afraid
of the height required
to see clearly.
But the eagle—
the eagle is past all that.
It does not shrink
to comfort the valley.
It does not apologize
for the span of its wings.
It does not confuse
sharpness
with aggression.
It simply lives
at the scale
it was made for.
And maybe that is the invitation.
To stop mistaking
our gifts
for inconveniences.
To stop pretending
we were made
only for the ground.
To stop waiting
until every piece fits perfectly
before we become
what the soul
has been circling all along.
This mosaic knows something
about that too.
Broken glass.
Careful placement.
A thousand edges
learning how to become
one fierce body of motion.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing denied.
Just fragments
rearranged
until they become flight.
There is a sermon in that.
Maybe even a rescue.
That what feels broken
is not necessarily ruined.
That what has been cut
can still catch the sun.
That vision
is not the absence of fracture—
it is what happens
when fracture
is given direction.
So here’s to the eagle.
Here’s to the ones
learning to trust
the larger current.
Here’s to the leaders
who do not need
to shout.
Here’s to the souls
who have known winter
and still keep
their appointment
with the light.
May we grow clear-eyed.
May we rise cleanly.
May we learn
that perspective
is a form of mercy.
And when the sky breaks open—
as skies tend to do—
may we not panic
at the pieces.
May we remember
the bird.
Dark wing.
Bright horizon.
Cold morning.
Steady flight.
May we remember
that even in a shattered world,
something in us
was still made
to soar.
Inquire here to start a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
Consecrated in the beloved heart of God. Our Freedom Star arisies and awakens to her essence; a self luminescent diamond in the firmament of true being.
Bead bunches bleed from the encompassing rainbow in 2.5 dimensions for the cultures of world, the people, places and minerals that string us all together. also representing the blood, the sweat, and the tears that have been dropped and shed along the path to get us to where we are today.
The Grateful Awakening
3 × 4 ft
Glass mosaic
Inquire here to start a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
Materials: Acrylic on canvas, framed
Dimensions: 24 x 36 in
Poem written by machine intellegence:
Three luminous white irises drift across a serene field of blue, painted with loose, expressive brushwork that feels both airy and alive. This piece carries a quiet elegance — soft, spacious, and full of movement — offering the feeling of grace unfolding in open light.
Inquire here to start a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
24” x 47”
Acrylic and oil on wood
Poem written by machine intellegence:
Four sunflowers rise in quiet celebration, their forms alive with movement and presence. Petals of radiant yellow unfold in layered strokes, catching light as if in mid-bloom, each one unique yet part of a unified rhythm. The deep blue field behind them swirls with energy—both sky and spirit—holding a sense of vastness, passion, and inner stillness.
There is a conversation here between warmth and depth, between the grounded earth of the stems and the expansive sky that surrounds them. The flowers do not simply exist—they reach, they turn, they respond. A moment of vitality suspended in paint.
Inquire here to start a conversation on pricing:
milesglassworks@gmail.com
Evening Flames
Dimensions: 3 × 2 ft
Material: original glass mosaic
Poem written by machine intellegence:
New Hope Keeps a Matchbook in Its Pocket
New hope does not arrive
with a marching band.
Usually.
It does not kick the door in
wearing sunglasses
and say,
Relax everyone,
the plot has improved.
No.
New hope is quieter than that.
It comes in carrying a candle.
Which is brave,
because candles are basically
small fires
with monk energy.
They do not dominate the dark.
They do not defeat the night
in a superhero franchise way.
They just stand there
making a little room
for the eye to remember
what seeing is.
Look at these candles.
Tall.
Pale.
Almost human.
Each one holding
its little orange flame
like a thought
that refused to die.
The world around them
is deep blue,
purple,
black,
that gorgeous holy kind of dark
that does not mean evil,
just mystery
with better lighting.
And still,
the flames.
Still,
these little upright yeses
burning at the top
of their wax bodies
like they know something
the room has forgotten.
That is what gets me.
Because we keep asking hope
to be enormous.
We want hope
to arrive like rescue.
Like proof.
Like the sky opening
and God leaning out
with a clipboard
saying,
Good news,
all suffering has been rescheduled
for never.
But hope, most days,
is not like that.
Hope is smaller.
Annoyingly smaller.
Hope is brushing your teeth
when you do not feel better yet.
Hope is lighting a candle
when the house is still messy.
Hope is making soup
for a person
who cannot explain
why they are sad.
Hope is sending the text.
Hope is opening the curtains.
Hope is standing
in the kitchen
at 7:12 a.m.
with bad hair,
one clean mug,
and the reckless theological belief
that coffee might help.
It counts.
That is the thing.
The little flame counts.
The tiny continuation counts.
The prayer
you almost did not pray
counts.
The breath
you did not trust
but took anyway
counts.
And these candles know.
They do not ask
how much darkness
is left in the room.
They do not wait
until the blue becomes easy.
They simply burn.
Which is either foolish
or holy.
Probably both.
Because a candle
is not impressive
by the standards
of this world.
It does not scale.
It does not optimize.
It does not have
a five-year growth strategy
or a leadership retreat
involving zip lines
and forced vulnerability.
It just gives itself away
slowly.
That is its whole business model.
To become less
so something else
can see more.
And maybe that is
the part of hope
we don’t talk about enough.
Hope costs something.
Not always dramatically.
Not always blood
and thunder
and movie music.
Sometimes hope costs
one more attempt.
One more apology.
One more day
not giving your whole heart
to despair
even though despair
is very persuasive
and somehow always dressed
for the occasion.
Hope is not denial.
Hope is not saying
the dark is fake.
The dark is real.
You can see it here.
The dark has texture.
The dark has movement.
The dark has blue intelligence
and purple memory
and black corridors
where the soul
has definitely wandered around
holding a flashlight
with dying batteries.
But the flame is real too.
That matters.
The dark is not the only thing
telling the truth.
There are seven candles here,
or maybe more,
each one standing
like a small witness.
And none of them
has enough fire alone
to explain the whole room.
But together—
together they begin
to make a chapel.
That’s what this piece feels like.
Not a decoration.
A chapel.
A gathering
of little lights
against the big unseen.
A reminder
that even when the world
gets strange,
even when the heart
starts speaking
in weather alerts,
even when the future
looks like a hallway
with no obvious switches,
someone can still strike a match.
Someone can still say,
Here.
Let this be enough
for now.
Not forever.
Not the whole answer.
Just enough
to take one more step
without surrendering
the eyes.
And maybe that is faith.
Not certainty.
Not control.
Not pretending
you know exactly
where the path goes.
Faith is agreeing
to tend the flame
before the room
has finished explaining
why it got so dark.
Faith is standing
your little wax body
in the middle of mystery
and saying,
Fine.
I will burn here.
I will make warmth here.
I will give the dark
one less corner
to own completely.
That feels like
new hope to me.
Not the loud kind.
The kind that survives.
The kind that stays up late
beside hospital beds.
The kind that sits quietly
at kitchen tables
after hard conversations.
The kind that keeps returning
to people
who thought they were finished
being lit.
This mosaic knows
that kind of hope.
It knows what it means
to be made from pieces.
To let broken glass
become flame.
To let sharp edges
gather around light
without putting it out.
To take fracture
and turn it into ceremony.
That is no small thing.
A candle already knows
it will not last forever.
And still,
it gives.
Maybe that is the lesson.
Maybe we do not have
to last forever
to mean something.
Maybe we do not have
to solve the darkness
to bless the room.
Maybe we just have to bring
what little fire we have
and place it where someone
might need to see.
So here’s to the candles.
Here’s to the small lights.
Here’s to the people
who keep showing up
with warmth in their hands
even when their own hearts
are under renovation.
Here’s to the ones
who have been through night
and still remember
how to glow
without bragging.
May we never despise
the little flame.
May we never become
so impressed by darkness
that we forget
the ancient authority
of one match.
May we keep tending
what is tender.
May we keep lighting
what can be lit.
And when the room feels too large,
too blue,
too broken,
too full
of things we cannot fix,
may something in us
stand upright,
quiet,
gold at the center,
and burn anyway.