Some called it a lantern,
When a candle was placed in it
To set off its colors like errant rainbows
Cut glass sapphire blues, ruby reds and emerald greens
Once reflected
A room’s lit chandeliers and flickering candles
Others called it a vase
When it held rare flowers
On the mantle
But really it was just a colorful bottle
Whose undoing had been one great fall
Damaged just enough
Discarded in the woods
No longer receiving long gazes
Drawing ‘oohs,’ and ‘ahhs’
Glass pieces chipped, scratched, and missing-
Its once shimmering gold outlines and filigrees
Dull and corroded in the outdoor elements
Former eyes
Greedy for beauty
Turned away in a huff
For a long time it lay on the ground
Not fighting its change of fortunes
Not moving at all
One day, in the warmth of the sun
A powerful genie, like a gentle cloudy vapor,
Filled the broken bottle
The genie carried with it a lovely light
That shone through the chipped colored glass pieces
Now even its gold seemed less dull
“A lie!” swore the bottle
The bottle rolled back and forth in the winds
To unsettle and dislodge the genie
The genie stayed
“Obnoxious!” thought the bottle
It thought it heard the genie laugh softly
But having no ears to hear,
It wondered how it had heard
It rolled itself under the brush
Hidden
A worthless bottle
Fall rains came,
Dead leaves collected in the brush
The bottle was buried alive
The bottle dared not move
Lest it encourage the genie
The genie stayed
Cold winter days came,
Dark winds
Heavy snows froze the bottle
Spring thaws came
The bottle thought the waters that filled it
Would drown the genie
But the genie stayed firm.
The bottle began to admire
The steadfast genie
One day it was the bottle that laughed softly
With admiration for the genie
It heard itself, and knew that it had ears to hear
It saw that the genie
Made the bottle
Beautiful with its light
The bottle, plain though it was, took its place out in the open,
Marveling at the genie’s light
That shone through its brokenness.
Michele Marie
Michele Marie's Poetry By The Fireside... 
This piece is beautiful. I interpreted as an allegory, but there are myriad ways in which one could understand it.
LikeLike
Thank you Nitin, and yes,both an allegory and a parable…
LikeLike
This is what I thought of when I read this, and reread it: imperfect human beings imaging God and what is below. Don’t sell the movie rights to this too cheaply. Guy McClung
“Each Person as Soul Body
Each person is a souled-body, an embodied soul. In the venerable terms of the Baltimore Catechism: “Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.”4
A variety of definitions and discussion stress that a person is not a soul that possesses or that uses a body. A person is not a body which has a soul in it. To John Paul, a person is “a complimentary combination of ‘body-life’.”5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes a human being as “a being at once body and soul.”6 The Catholic Encyclopedia presents a clear concise summary:
Together with the body, the soul constitutes the substantial unity of the human being . . . Human identity is … constituted by the unity of soul and body. The relation of the soul to the body is not an instrumental one, but a real, substantial one.”
LikeLike
Guy, the bottle is a broken person, a sinner, perhaps, and the genie is the Spirit of God with His grace…… Often we have to hit rock bottom before we are open to the promptings of the Spirit of God, to being open to the deeper more real reality that exists once we are separated from either our materialism and/or worldliness and finally are open to higher things.. However, I love your definitions too!
LikeLike
Wow! What a beautiful story!
LikeLike
Thank you Andy, your comment makes my day 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person