The Night Was Still There

I traveled for eight years

Through turbulent times

To try and arrive

At this exact moment

What a night awaits

What a perfect explanation

For Heaven is the answer

To every question
You’ve ever had

But further down

Along the shore of defeat

I found people

Crestfall people

Hugging sand as it scattered

Onto their bare legs

Fall not into disrepair

The begging would say

For if you travel as I have

You will make your way

To a night

That is lit up

Brighter than any day

A night that promises

No cold or want of shelter

Quartz and topaz

A sky so expressive

You’d swear

It was a canvas

You will wander away

From the night

And when you return

There will be no greater shock

Than the one you will feel

Knowing the night was still there

All that time you were gone

Through all those varied lifetimes

Having all your sons and daughters

Marrying all the loves

Of your many lives

Buying land

Fighting war

Giving into sickness

And solitude

Only to return to the greatest answer

Which is--

Nothing was lost

There is a great finality

Corseted along the edge

Of whatever we think

The floor will be

And this floor

That is not a floor

But something stronger

And more stable

Is made of impermeable stuff

Because it is the End

But it is not meant

To inspire fear

On the contrary

It is there

To let us know

That whatever we drop

Will be caught

Whatever we let go

Will be received

By another

Whatever we feel

We’ve given up on

Was taken up as a cause

By someone who could travel

A few miles farther

Than we could

At our weariest

I traveled for eight years, myself

And when I was finished traveling

I wanted to return

And found I did not know the way

There were no bread crumbs 

Or lighthouses

Guiding me home

And no adventures

To preoccupy my mind

While I went off in a thousand

Wrong directions

Just monotony

Loneliness

And the sound of someone

Calling my name

The name I hadn’t used

Since the day I left

And a voice that sounded

Like a song
I hadn’t sung

Since the day I was born

Or a song that had been sung to me

A song that used to ring familiar

With words in another language

That I no longer speak

I traveled until I reached

The place where the insurmountable End

Meets the Up and Up

And that’s where I rested

Knowing that from then on

People would come to me

If I needed them to

But I needn’t travel

Anymore