– The Ever-Now

Ring the bell,
once for each name
that walked ahead of us.

Light the candle,
not for absence,
but because love
still knows how to shine.

*

Last night the streets wore masks.
Laughter wandered under the moon.

Now morning lifts the veil.

*

Look to the mountains.
From the high ridge
color pours downhill,
green, then rust,
then red, then gold,
gold fading into violet,
until heaven lies scattered
in the neighbor’s backyard.

*

Listen.
Cicada gives way to cricket,
cricket to the mockingbird
on the high wire.

One reed falls silent.
The same breath
moves to the next.

*

Where are the saints?

Here.
Behind us, beside us,
within us,
whirling through the stars,
singing in the Ever-Now.

They live in every gift,
every shared loaf,
every heart left open,
the remembered and the remembering
drinking from one cup.

*

So I ask:
Are you dead?
Am I alive?

Or have we always lived
in the same house of Love,
where death
is only a curtain
between two rooms?

*

The leaves change color
because they are alive.

And you, beloved saints,
are changing in me too,
into memory,
into gratitude,
into joy,
into praise.