Light of Christ

She held it cupped in her wrinkled palms,
across her lifeline, it burned
And fragmented and grew.
She peered in, squinting hard,
Hands to nose
Stars igniting in her eyes.

She clenched it then, tightly
Pushed it away with the force of her now
elongated arm, like a sigh, or fainting,
or a fervent dance.

She didn’t let go.
Afraid, though, of
The Revealing:
over-exposure,
Conviction – no trial necessary

But it hurt, holding its
heat, its heaviness
She shuttered her eyes

Release.
She knows it’s gone.
She can see the sun with her eyelids pinched tight.
A whisper, a knowing – she musters the courage to
Look.

She is enwrapped in a gown of radiance
frothy and feathered and laden with silk,
A light that imparts light
A glow that reveals, not her own:
griminess, despair, darkness.
The light of truth and love,
The light of Christ encroaching on:
decay, vanity, deceit,
Death.

Embraced, ignited,
A girl on fire
Enshrouded in the revealing and
Holy Light of Christ.