“To you do we send up our sighs; mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.”
~ from the Salve Regina
Why
Do I each evening
Remain awake and active just long enough
To scrape the last skin striving to heal the cut off
To watch the last leave fall from the tree of memory
To let the darkness seep inside the eyes
So that those familiar faces and voices
Those loves so much a part that should they appear ten thousand days past, again
Would be as familiar, as home, as comfort, as embrace of soul as ever in times past?
Why do I await the “mourning and weeping” as if I’ve never heard their step before? Or tasted the edge of their blade?
Why?
But the light beckons.
Not only in the promised Morning yet unseen
But even here, now,
Before the burning lamp and the steady eye and hand of blessing
Even here, there is light.
“And the darkness shall not …”
Believe it. 