FRIEND

How you have touched me
in the sad night of my aloneness!
The vision past of golden life
streaming over my patient greening friends
and fluttering wise singer of songs
understood but not spoken
is ever with me,
now companion to your touch,
acceptance gentle,
this great peace,
this rest from seeking.
Be not frightened of ghosts.
They have been laid,
the spirit has been freed by your caring
and passion triumphs over the remnants
of the cold, the ragged, the hungry,
and the ashamed.
These survivors of a life
steeped with the fragments of a faith
that is no faith
will yield to love and celebration;
and the fear of sudden loss will be no more,
will be no more.


Utah 1983
M. Reynolds