A Form of Light

-- I begin with love, hoping to end there. -- Jericho Brown

We stand in the light that comes with the rise of the day

Under a dawn whose own end begins an evening.

Each dawning, each evening, each beginning, each ending,

Each passage of light held in the form of the day.

We have seen the passing that holds together these days

That forms the swiftly gathering light of a year.

We know the full, gathered time of all of those swift years

That forms the binding of light into each joined life.

We have seen bound with that life a path that passes through

A shadowed valley that we each shall walk alone.

It is the casting of that shadow that will tell us

Of the light that must shine beyond that valley's rim

And having walked there to the high rim of that valley

We stand in the light that comes with the rise of day.

-- For Margaret Dale and Tony Barrand