The choirs have gone home, and in the grey spring
Dusk the church grows still. The coals
That glowed red in the thurible are dimming
While belated incense falls in veils
Like mist in quiet fields at evening.
The resurrection songs have sounded bright
And joyful in the morning, but the pale
Hospice patient will not last the night.
Death still reigns this side of the veil
And bitter loss like icy rain, like blight.
But the outrage that we feel at death is pointing
To the fact that love outlasts the body’s death.
Reality wears veils, and hiding, hinting
Shows truth too big to grasp, like breath
Of incense clouds evoking light that’s glinting
Just out of sight, where other songs resound
Beyond the veil, a place that yet is strange.
When at twilight our turn comes around
To part the mists, though everything is changed,
Familiar voices welcome us as found.
tRuth 2018
image copyright tRuth http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
poem prayer silence 