Solitary Candle

I hope you will remain patient while my computer and I continue our recovery from our latest adventure/misadventure ... I think the computer's working right, now ... and that I am, too.
Oh, I still bump into furniture ... misplace my car keys (there they ARE ... in my OTHER pocket) ... trip on cracks in the sidewalk. You know, the kinds of ordinary things that ordinary people do as they pick their way through the fog of the day.
And I think I can once again see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have hopes of picking up the threads of the "conversation" we have going here ... of actually catching up on my responses to your posted comments (and I do find them helpful, energizing ... essential).
Once again, my apologies for falling so far behind. 
And now, if this machine is really working properly, today's poem:

SOLITARY CANDLE
My candle sculpts

itself in its corner
of the room, flame
gyrating in the draft,
tiny avalanches
of wax slithering
into the maw,
a fungible, seething
mass that labors
back up the wick
to sacrifice itself
as a bit of light,
distant warmth. It
flickers, warning me
that I shall soon miss
the warmth, its quiet
companionship, gently
flowing memories, its
solitary, sustaining
work of holding
the darkness at bay.
© 1996
(originally published in Anterior Poetry Monthly)

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Today's word: fungible