Wednesday 28 March 2018

Holding on to the song

It is Holy Week, and often, right now, I would be walking with Student Cross. Other commitments mean that this year, I was able to walk the first weekend, and will go back for the very end, but in the interim I am back in Birmingham.

It shouldn't be too hard: I am back in a place I love, with people I care about and commitments I really believe in. But half my heart is walking across the fens this week. This poem: written in the raw space of leaving them behind, I guess tries to say something about why I have learned to love this transient community so much. See you soon Northern Leg.

Beneath a sky stretched out wide, the smiles burn bright
As here rooted, protected a soul dares take flight
So what might cast a shadow, only dapples the light
And the laughter still whispers by day and by night
Preserving uniqueness, we enter the throng
Each playing our part as we hold on to the song

Warmed by fragile spring sun, our hearts dare to thaw
As emotions run deep and emotions run raw
In the hope of the healing of all that is sore
There’s space for the trusting of being unsure
And as we stand by another to journey along
Sometimes it’s our turn to hold on to the song

And though there are tears and exhaustion and pain
A buffeting of wind and a battering of rain
Though there’s something to lose there is much more to gain
And ever and onward is the murmured refrain
And as each of us learn we can’t always be strong
We know there’ll be someone holding on to the song

Where once lines seemed clear, the boundaries are blurred
Creating loving community in action and word
And even the silences strain to be heard
As heart speaks to heart, the divine is inferred
When things seem all right and when things feel all wrong
Through this and through that we’ll hold on to the song

Amidst the intricate beauty of nature’s design
With the black knots of our darkness, the gold strands that dare shine
We’re walking a tapestry as our lives intertwine
And a small thread of your story becomes a small stitch in mine
Each bringing our own self finds a way to belong
Thus creating the harmony, thus holding the song

To ourselves, to another, a message to send
With yet space for the brokenness not ready to mend
We step out together: a stranger, a friend
For the point is the journey, and not journey’s end
And while the ground may seem hard and the road sometimes long,
Somehow together we’ll hold on to the song.

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