I watch you, my neighbors,
most unknown to me —
watch your lights rise up.
You come here for your joys,
for your reunions,
in your free time, for your friends
and for your hobbies
And as you walk
your bodies
show the many twists
the light needed to make
coming up through the burdens,
the rejections,
through the sense of failure
and the strategies you’ve used,
the resolutions, the regimes,
the marks which, though I can’t decipher them
hint of a tale
recounting why your light came forth
in this particular way.
And if you are like me,
You likely think
your story is invisible
And maybe you are right
For maybe, in the end
All these burdens will dissolve
And all of us will walk here unencumbered
by all the weights our bodies now betray
And we will see each other
as we now, in our best moments
see the ones we love:
Redeemed by light,
Brave and shining through their day.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2012