In a Curiosity Shop in Covent Gardens
look what I found…!
And what
can a candle boat mean
to anyone
except
to the hand that
put it together,
cut it from a coffee tin
blue as the simple sky.
And to me, a child —
candle boat as
magnificent as a constellation
swirled
into the heavens with
a flourish of peacock feathers.
A stout creature really,
my candle boat, and inside it,
to hold a candle,
cradle of my delight,
a receptacle for sweet-choky
carbon of past play.
It pounds through water,
in a rusty tub,
pounds back and forth
with puffs of slate smoke,
churns up in its wake
crystal laughter.
Till the candle sobs out.
And now,
the waters have crept down
eyes
grown remote
with billows of pain
faces float
on unanswered calls
unanswerable questions…
Candle boat,
sweetest mystery
of them all,
today
as you broke through silence
you brought me
In a mist of stars,
to a rendezvous with myself.
Farida Haque
