The Candle’s Flame

I am. I am confused. My mind becomes chaotic. I try to grasp some logic from the flotsam of my world. Each time I bring some order to this life, contradiction surfaces— exposing strife within the frame I built of truths and lies. Boundaries blur. Order flies— like smoke in sudden wind. The dark, a candle’s flame holds back in symmetry: the wick of black, a cone of red then yellow hue— a smooth, unruffled plume of gas ascends above the light’s sharp end and then dissolves in turbulence and chaos, into dark. I must be an aberration, or perhaps some strange mutation— so different from those who find relief and solace for the mind in resonance with sacred rite or dogma dressed in logic’s light. For each time I believe I’ve found a haven—solid ground in argued logic or belief— complacency is all too brief. Contradictions reappear, roiling thought, then making clear the lie behind ephemeral peace. The river’s water churns and swirls— a turbulence of waves and curls— then, just before its final fall, flows smooth. And I’m enthralled by that moment’s near perfection. Yet I grieve the next inflection and its imminent dispersion into mist. Did Mandelbrot peer in, and glimpse the eye of God? Did Feigenbaum discern some rule in Chaos? Fractal branching threads through our veins. Butterflies in China might bring rains. Strange attractors might explain our fluctuating climate— but in vain do we predict the future’s skein. Why is it transcendental pi does not in time transmogrify the circle’s perfect harmony? Computed to infinity— still, it’s not solved. Disaster strikes, and aid is sent a continent away by people generous to those displaced by God. A cold and homeless man stands on the street, ignored by those who send their aid away. Mother Teresa’s hospice gives some dignity to those who live in pain—and who, without the acolytes, would die alone. A passerby defies a flaming house to save a child, and dies. A stately raptor stoops to snatch a fledgling duckling from its place beside the hen who must await her dwindling brood’s eventual fate. Nearby, three eaglets will survive because that duckling lost its life. I strive to understand with transcendental meditation, Holy grace and dispensation, legal court and deposition, philosophic supposition, Buddhist chant, and yogic mantra. But still— each hour, a starving child dies. The world confuses more: capitalism, communism, socialism, protectionism, centralize, free enterprise, free trade, trade unions, GATT, NAFTA, World Bank, IMF— and half the world survives on less than two dollars a day. My mind’s abused. I am confused. Perhaps the candle’s flame is all.