The Door That Was Always Open

When a wave returns to its vast source,

one might mourn it, or marvel

that something so brief could carry

so much of forever on its back.

🌹

We weep at departures as though love

were a thing of duration,

as though a song must keep sounding

to remain a song.

🌹

Yet all that has ever been given

was given on loan from an older grace,

and what we call loss

may be only love completing its circle.

🌹

A star, when it sets,

does not become less than it was.

Its light, already on its way,

arrives long after its going.

So is it with those we have loved.

🌹

Dying, then, is a harvest,

a gathering of what was scattered

across seasons of forgetting.

A river finding the sea

and saying, at last,

I remember. I remember. I am home.