For so long I observed the world
and tried to adapt to its customs, looking for meaning
and seeming to find none by its standards,
casting myself off like a forgotten thing,
my trust in what I knew by heart waning
in the bright lights and shiny seasons
that seemed to pass me by.

I made notes about the little things,
how one should know what one does in the world
and not only who one is beneath the suit, how
you ask about another's day, how happy
birthday wishes and Christmas cards
arriving in the mail meant I
had not been forgotten.

I will never forget how I held your card
and imagined you remembered more than I had
thought you did and how that sparked
me again, like the words you spoke,
like the way you looked out on the water
from the boat, like the way you float
and fly through dreams with me.

I dreamed the dream I dreamed was true
for you, and I suppose I came to believe in time
you would find the words or let it be
as it has always been and not pretend.
But I was most true in the beginning
of this life, untainted by all the
little expectations, all the incantations
and proclamations that rang hollow
in my heart.

I chose the dream, the dance, the dare
to be free of all such things. Sometimes, 
as I await the advent and second birth,
singing to myself in a language 
only I know, I am like a little child,
not knowing anything, scooping up
all the things I know nothing of, holding
them in love.

I set free all I thought I knew. They died
and lived again the day I sat across from you
after signing your petition for my absence,
betraying everything for nothing, thinking
this demand would be your last, never
dreaming of all the wintry blasts
yet to come or of all the silent nights—
but also never imagining that so many
miracles would come to pass.

Who can say when our hearts and souls
are reborn on earth where the road will lead,
whether we will fail or succeed in some
attempt to remember or forget, to soar
or as before to fly below some imagined radar?
Who can say when we choose to walk in the way
of love what will be?

Who can say what star might rise in the East
on the bleakest midwinter night or who might
appear, bearing the unexpected gift, breaking forth
like a Son who enters in to the heart's chamber
and holds you like a little child, smiles
and says, "Well done."? No one knows
the hour and so we await again
the revelation of a mystery.