“You, Lord, Keep my lamp
              burning”                          
                               — Psalm 18:28a  

Things are not always what they seem
and I question optics when they state
the science of light and color is what we see

when an object does not absorb
a specific band of the spectrum. 
Your skin seems as if powdered

when it catches passive illumination
whether from ultraviolet or mundane
source.  It is just as soft as it appears

in that light and there is something
to be said for it, even there, even when
it is not being bathed

by greater source.  But when it is,
you defy optics.  You rise above the natural

world.  Under the amber
of streetlamps, or the moon, it is
metallic, a sheen without need

of moisture, a liquid shine that is
caramel latte to my lips, my tongue,
capturing and holding my attention

in wonder:  The way you take
what little luminance whispers the dark
and create a candle’s glow no candle could

hope to hold.  But when you
stand beneath the heat of the sun,
you, truly, come alive;

caramel stretches taut across
a furnace, a crucible, volcanic
depths of burnished gold,

as if suffused with fire
and saffron-hot coals
pulsing with the bellows

of life.  Optics tell us what we see
is purely the spectrum not absorbed
but refracted, reflected, rejected

and therefore what is seen is not
what is latent or inherent or even
part of the truth of a thing.

But for you, I must disagree;
when you stand beneath the Light
shining in this dark world,

what is held, what is beheld, what is
alive beneath the surface of your form
is more than proof of what you are:

It is proof
there even is
a God.