Alone in the early hours I long for silence
rarely found behind these doors. Reaching their peak, muffled murmurs
cry out in the rooms upstairs.

Only to be lulled back, to quieting slumber,
found curled up in a warm quilt,
as the cold October rain taps outside.

Will you hold the largest parchment aside for me?
I will bring it before candlelight
and hazelnut coffee in the cold of October.

Before daylight storms into this sleepy house,
I will unravel the letter twine, and break
the waxen seal carefully.

Lest a single dream, a glancing smile,
all those bits of innocence, and laughter,
come falling out and spill on the floor.

I have kept life to the maker,
and find myself as a mouse in a maze,
walking through his great design.

She lays upstairs, waiting for the man in me,
to put my strong arms around her supple body
to slip away with her into slumber.

Nestled softly to a beating heart,
the sounds of our children playing in their dreams.
I must walk away from the parchment.

Could I leave my footsteps on the face of the wind,
or cast the colors of fall, on the Cherry blossom trees,
that sit in my front yard?

I see his Grace in the falling rain. I hear his voice
when my children are awake, running through this house,
as daylight streams through every window.

Alone, in the quiet of this day, on a cold October morning,
in the house on Summit Avenue, I wait to witness his Grace. When the maker of Heaven and Earth will open the sunrise.