chaos, refuge

My stories have dried up
as all things must
to be scattered, untraceable, from their source.

Let them be.

With them go the details of my life
that when called upon are reformed and reinterpreted.
What was will always be obscured by what is.
The past is not alive- it cannot be revived with breath or the desperate
heart compressions.
We search our memory for the lines of the dearest face,
the exact tone of the voice we will never again hear.

We cannot keep anything we love. But as long as we are here,
we break our bread and share our beds, we give broth
and nurse one another through sickness, and we hope for more time.
This is all we have, and it is never enough.

There was a time when I was moved by tragic love,
but I have had my fill of tragedy. What is truly precious
is the love that rebuilds after tragedy, setting the cairn over ruins.

Chaos has been our mother, and we have been given that which is too precious to willingly pass on. “To let the mortal world be enough"- a challenge we each must each stare bewildered in the eyes.

I am here and I have so much to give. May we be a refuge
to everything that lives.