I have a fondness for candles. They are like quiet, comforting, little friends that keep me company on evenings like tonight, when I am alone. When we have people over to dinner I light a dozen or more candles: my dinner parties resemble seances, in a good way.
The artist Goya fashioned a hat for himself with candles in it, so that he could paint at night.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEXAOKtjDFJAVenKaF7A-zMt4TpLYG7EA0o_3epRgoPyRX24qfuAuEIh8j0FhwZ8Vap-OE8xXOFPWhqAZswXx2QxSnOWkv2-Cry9Bn5z-cwd2tM1_X7mcYa-NJQOxpV-5q2UQZW8hMNiDT/s400/301goya.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQ8v_plaCrkaWP2GTyllH3jbIvrBBR3Nzn7FP7NH6ITUcUhrF1Er1bHC6VkUpjuOn5qV_EwRm7e4VsC4TjenbnHV1-MeFrBxHQHt_gld86Q0pjSwGDHqUjoSs9f075YlnyOad0J-yFTLN/s320/goya961.jpg)
The movie Goya's Ghosts took this fact and probably exaggerated a bit. I'm kind of jealous of that hat.
This time of year, all around our house the trees are "candling" --but they are definitely not on fire: the other forestry meaning of "candle" refers to the flowering of pine trees in the late spring.
The trees have been doing this for a few weeks now, but soon we'll be into summer and it will come to a halt. People who suffer from allergies will be grateful because these candles produce tortuous pollen.
Well, I think all of these candles are worth writing about tonight. And what the heck, an inscrutable poem for you from the 1920's:
From Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale:
Blue Squills
- How many million Aprils came
- Before I ever knew
- How white a cherry bough could be,
- A bed of squills, how blue!
- And many a dancing April
- When life is done with me,
- Will lift the blue flame of the flower
- And the white flame of the tree.
- Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
- Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
- Lest in the end death try to take
- Even this glistening hour.
- O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
- O sunlit white and blue,
- Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
- May bear the scar of you.
I never knew the word, candling.
ReplyDeleteI love candles too. My very favorite scents are outdoorsy and woodsdy.