Shout with joy/don’t stop never stop/no matter what this world tells you/tries to take from you/hold someone near/someone you love/and shout with joy/the day your parched bitters forget/drop everything/run/practice like your life depends on it/practice joy my love/practice joy/quiet joy has its place/often an easier companion she makes/set a place for rude/loud/extravagant/joy/let me hear you/gasp/for joy’s next breath

The beautiful girls are now/elegant expressions of grown beauty/inside and outside/I wonder if we crammed enough joy in to their days/eschewed diminishing judgments/beetled brows/I wonder if they know we saw them/see them still/shining

And there we were/awhirl and atwirl in coffee hour/post confirmation glow/for the holy occasion some had to cover our heads/be biblically sound/we hailed from all the globe/well met beneath Tiffany windows/in the Bronx heights/stayed/we beneath banners stitched in faith/by ladyfingers/dashed to duck the camera/for special sherbet punch/and holy cookies/we carried the circle of love with us/the window we craned aloft to always read/at evening tide/there shall be light/such theology/carried us and shall carry us still/confirmed/until evening tide surrenders that light

It is a view I found/brought me peace/as the light waned/as the shadows/crept into her room/the night before a morning departure/fighting tears/I would breathe the air she loved/think of the flat palm leaves the child rode down kangaroo hills/remember she was finally home/at last

House of dreams/and sorrows/of what we knew/looking out/the window eye lids/ yearning/for elsewhere/but we knew fat iris/violet blue/and tawny gold/we knew tiger lilies/spheres of purple rhododendron/the scented lilac tempting us at the top of the street/we knew summer/blew the loosening domestication/of roses/far away/we knew waiting for the seedling of change

In the face of such light/we wonder/such unasked/unanswered questions/fixed by mystery/we bathe in unadulterated hope

Surrounded by love/on the church steps/seeking assurance/that in what lies ahead/love endures/living the baptism/claimed that day/surrounded by angels/whispering/love lives on

The road to friend’s door/the holy welcome/the utter peace of relaxation/stories shared/luxuriating in beauty/luminous in rest

I remember I had the careless urge/to lecture him/one day/ about civil rights/after he told me to pass/for white/and he said/I left home in a slave labor ship/cut cane/faced off death/disdain and pain beamed from/angry eyes/I’m not sure I ever apologized/for my mistaken arrogance/ignorance/all I could think was how far they came/and how carefree and almost easy/they looked on the way

They took care to send love/over miles/through uncertain days/they took pains to be present with each other/sent the reassurance of style and courage/faced every circumstance/with panache