At journey’s end,
resting in sunlight’s radiant glow,
we drifted into the golden hush
and gave rein to the moment.

In its embrace,
we gloried in the fullness of days
and befriended the certainty
of a life greater than our own.

Each of us--
reflections of our own making,
shaped and cast
from the vast silence within.
Each of us,
fragmented prisms
imbued with life’s colour.
Each of us,
now bound by this one golden filament,
washed in the warmth of its wholeness.

Can it be the pull of our birth’s origins,
whose love it is that seeks so anxiously
to bind we sinewed shards of light?
​Like pieces of a shattered mirror,
seamlessly, miraculously
fused together
to reflect the maker’s face.

​For what else could Camino be
but the way we move and are moved by the light,
drawing us ever forward — together,
breaking the silence
of private prayers,
in the blaze
of such wondrous beauty.

Each breath deepening
​To strike a flaming moment
And pierce shadows’ veils
With golden shafts of light.

For every man who straps a bomb to kill another,
A million more will turn from horror to mourn the loss.

When a Tiananmen tank, oppressing the free,
Is thwarted by courage of the one
Or yet again is driven by another,
Who preserves a life he’s been ordered to quell,
We know that good persists.

When tears flow and hearts break
At the sight of the desperate refugee,
When her child’s body, lying awash in the rising tide,
Rebukes to release the bridled good
Then we know love’s time is near.

Where there is fear and pain,
Hatred and judgment, and lie upon lie,
But you alone stand
As an offering to undo the twisted path,
Then through you we will know:
​Love’s time has come.

Immaculately gowned in an ankle-length night dress
your cherubic frame,
crowned with rings of delicate red curls,
twirled round and round.

You were in the moment --
​immersed,
perfectly attuned
to the strummed, earthy melody.

Arms waving, fingers tracing the air,
moving with purpose, shaping
the sound that filled you.

Baby blue-grey eyes,
riveted inward --
searching,
listening purely
for the notes that would lift you.

From the ground that once held you near,
you rose, on white-laced wings,
dancing you to the clouds.
And it was there that we could see
how softness glows.

With your innocence,
you took us in your arms
and helped us all embrace life
once again.

--

Only your soul will carry the memory of this.
The dance was freely given — a  gift
from the ground that gave you wings.

For surely it was this:
beauty, 
bringing us back to one another.

Oh, such power and wonder
in a slight frame --
crowned with delicate red curls,
twirling, round and round.