The yellow brass of the old candlestick
Reflects the dirty window’s cloudy sun.
The candle wax a blue of robin’s egg
Or daylight sky that softens into dusk.
The artless colors catch and hold the eye,
A pair unsought like sudden lovers wed.
A pressure dark, a force unnamed, a tide
That pulls and pulls is pulling here again.

One calls it “Beauty” true enough,
But saying so will make the moment said,
And so disturb the dust that settles here
Like gray upon the head or wisdom on
The soul that dare not speak of sacred things.

It’s better not to name the thing at all,
To leave the world to thicken in its bones.
The light itself then alters in its way,
No brighter than the light that was before,
But now with weight like paint that’s brushed on strong.
All grows and grows and crests and goes away,
And if it goes unlooked at then it goes,
Unloved, unknown, and so without its gift,
And poorer I would be until again,
Some other window’s light some other day,
Reveals the secret to a waiting eye.