"Through dusk to dawn and on and on day through night to day / The turning light returning will not turn me away"

Winter Song I I had to go outside to come back in Going and coming until I overcame What was to be the ending before the beginning Before I died so I could live again What was to be the losing before the winning The beginning ending so the end could begin Before what was to be was to be me When I remembered my forgotten name Though nobody is left now but me for me to blame Because I had to lose then before I could win II That was then when the horse and the carriage Of my elegant personality Went runaway through divorce from marriage The carriage before and the horse behind Through horror into madness after before Forgetting before for happy ever after Becoming a spaceship on a universal pilgrimage Remembering the laughter I had come here for Through lonely success into only wanting more Having come from then and now gone out of my mind III As this my returning reality Becomes the wings of Icarus for me When I think of then now that now is when I wonder how I ever passed between Since when then is when then is now again And this is the meaning of what I mean That as I think I am both now and then And now as I enter my winter I Manage the economy of my mortality Looking after every moment before I die IV Sunward slow and steady if precariously I have been forgiven and been forgiving Because I have seen how it has been when I have lost and won and here I am living Then through the swarms of would and could and should bes Now between the storms of dreams and memories Then for the when of before of after The zenith of the day though wax wings melt away Now for the laughter of happy ever after Freefalling to tomorrow through today from yesterday V And so I come full circle into winter after all Even though the laughter may be sweet and sour Turning spring to burn through summer I learned in fall The hard way the way I learn everything That winter is the losing wherein I win Learning the hard way makes it easy to remember As the time has come of my returning hour Here at the returning of the light in December Now having lost everything when I am winning Because I had to end then before I could begin VI That was then and this is now and somehow In the going and the coming I have overcome Going at today like no tomorrow coming now And when tomorrow never comes then now will be the same Knowing and not knowing of another spring to come Coming to remember my not forgotten name Coming and going I am going to come home And though nobody is left now but me for me to blame For the coming and the going or the knowing and not knowing I like now better now than I did then VII I no longer have to prove anything to anyone Nobody does except for those who play that game Being who I am and having done what I have done And having been a long time making better my best Here I am now being the best me I can be So those who do not get me go forget me for the rest Because I believe in me as God believes in me Now after not believing in anything at all But answering my question by believing what I see Now I enter my winter having learned how in fall VIII From sadness through madness to gladness take me Returning light of winter come and as I go make me The answer to the question asked so many suns ago The sunbeam sung on Sunday I once sang I would be As I have slept the time has crept up quietly to wake me And knowing and not knowing sowing springs ago I know As I enter into winter now the light will not forsake me Being as it was and will be doing what it does And I have kept the secret of the light within my heart The returning light of winter as both cause and because IX I had to come back in to go outside I had to turn and tune within beyond doubt and sin To bring myself to be myself as I was meant to be To the why of the eye of the storm of everything And here once proven guilty now redeemed and justified I enter into winter to bring myself as offering To bring me how it will be through now from how it was I had to go outside to come back in But as we come together even though we came apart I see the light of winter returning now to enter me X Through dusk to dawn and on and on day through night to day The turning light returning will not turn me away +Steven Curtis Lance Copyright MMX