Come Out of the Shadow

Come Out of the Shadow

(“I’m giving you a new commandment, and it’s this: love one another! Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:33)

Come out of the shadow, into the light
that bathes the corner shining like an unmined diamond.
Once more you will see, if you drink it slowly,
that the darkness has no hold on you.
The darkness is so untrue that only the
brightness can show you the truth.
Peace has been chasing you; hope, it’s instinctive double.

These days the silence has been playing tricks on you,
the hum of nothing makes you beg for bricks to build
another level over the brackish air beneath.
Conversation made you nervous,
performance left you shaking outside the stage.
Dreams were cut short before the gavel came down.

It wasn’t your fault; you were forced into hiding because
no one showed up when all you needed was
a drink from the spring that everyone else bragged about.
They thought you made so much money that there was
nowhere in the universe you would feel alone.

If you feel the shadow is all you can take, I’ll
join you and we may see the sun rise if we keep
our eyes open. We found our passage slowly,
we walked out the door mostly to breathe the
reborn air. Some moments it only takes
two people breathing at the same time.

I’ll walk with you to Mars or to the moon,
I’ll steer the light with my fingers. I’ll train your
eyes if I must. I’ll help them listen behind me and
look before me and know
we’ll find the diamonds of crystal carbon that
illumine our way.