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.