The Ceremony

Once a year, one by one,
they take a single candle's solitary flame
down to the lake's quiet shore and
set it adrift in the small boat of the heart.

It is for the souls of the departed.
It is about the other side,
but it is not happening there,
on the other side,
it is happening here, on this side, now.

And it is not candles, it is not souls
drifting away on the enormous, endless water.
It is the ones who married the wrong person,
burnt the roast, fed us, and set us adrift,
who spilled spaghetti on their good clothes
and laughed and died and left us.