Friends and Family

The night is black and beautiful
Dreadful and gorgeous
All around the great mystery is proclaimed:
Reality
More impossible than any fiction
More bizarre than any dream

The world is stalked by death and demons
Illness and despair
And just as fiercely, by questions haunting us
Questions borne of our own souls

As I gaze into the dark night
Warming my body to the abyss of Life
A problem wells up within me:
Why do I perservere in pain?
Why in anguish have I struggled on for eight years?

A dangerous question if not answered carefully
But for some reason I don't fear tonight
By some grace the soft and hidden voice of love
Proclaims that all the pain can't really hurt me
Or touch my soul

I call to mind my beautiful friends
And my family, the truest friends of all
I call them to mind, crowding the night with their forms
And I ask them forgiveness
Forgiveness for not being happy enough among them
Forgiveness for not rejoicing in the presence of spirits so lovely
So real and so true