Presence

Your absence is ever presence, like the moon gazing down palely or the sun bright in the blue sky.

It’s not a screaming absence,
thrashing, blood pouring.

It’s a thrumming, gentle,
a heartbeat, quietly constant.
Your absence is ever presence. 

Your Ring

These physical objects in glass cases, infused with historical wonder.
Do they hold a strange power?
A vibrating meaning in themselves?
Or are they just an empty symbol?

We come and go, transient, flickering,
floating away in dust and stars.

These objects tether,
bonds speaking from those who are gone.
Do their spirits whisper?

Your ring around my neck
travelled with you most of your life.
It blazed with love and community.
It was there before me,
in your young hopeful life,
whispering faithfulness, commitment, a building of a life.

There is just emptiness.
You are dust and stars
while the ring endures.

What you gave, your blazing essence,
does it live on eternal too?

Homes

I am not a wanderer or voyager, seeking endless new. I seek roots, a home, nourishing and wrapping.

My home now is the city
of my ancestors' streets and houses, ashes and bones.
Here I have knit a life, nesting,
deepening, cords binding.

But I still think of my first home,
the city where there’s always something to do,
where the world comes to us,
where every community gathers.
It blazes and sings in me,
aligned inside me,
in a way that no other place ever will.