In the dull hours you dreamed of ending, but think how you would never
have heard the birds sing above the quiet streets, seen the snow melt as January leans
toward thaw, or watched the red sun light the tips of the bare trees,
burning but not consumed.
Holy fire of sunset takes the world in stride; flames lick away what need not go on,
and you cannot kneel in ash forever; a gentle man once said,
let the dead bury their own dead—perhaps the harshest words he ever spoke.
But we are the ones still breathing, in and out, this ancient sacred breath,
inclining our eyes to the bright skies, branches aglow like embers;
they declare in the voice of YHWH, “You are standing on holy ground.”
Would you turn away from this world reviving?
Would you close your small body into a dark tomb?
Or would you rise again with the morning, feel sinew thread around bone,
blink as the dawn fills your eyes and see that the world, again, is wide?