4 July

Does it come to be this way
through this intention,
this resolution
that I could walk to her today?
Or are we forged of simple pieces -
broken puzzles,
unfinished murals
trying to seal the open breech?

But I found betwixt the lines
another place, a better mind.
Between the daylight and the night,
Something lingers, something finds

A simple answer
One that follows us all:
The love we all desire.
The oldest need, that burns like fire.
I found it then, I hold it now
like a golden sunlit vow.
I'll break the walls down,
and rebuild them all,
watching flames go up
as the lights go down,
staring through my window then,
on the Fourth of July.

But it's what is found
beneath the answers
the second candle
whose light urges us on
towards both the future and the night -
together learning
a world of humbling,
but it's us who makes the light.

And I found under that sky
something burning, a reason why
between the daylight and the night,
something lingers, something finds

A simple answer
One that follows us all:
The love we all desire.
The oldest need, that burns like fire.
I found it then, I hold it now
like a golden sunlit vow.
I'll break the walls down,
and rebuild them all,
watching flames go up
as the lights go down,
staring through my window then,
on the Fourth of July.

For ourselves, for each other,
For my sister, for my brother,
For my father, for my mother,
that we all might rediscover
what it means to be alive,
what we are, how we survive
what love is, what sense it drives,
and what we need to then derive

A simple answer
One that follows us all:
The love we all desire.
The oldest need, that burns like fire.
I found it then, I hold it now
like a golden sunlit vow.
I'll break the walls down,
and rebuild them all,
watching flames go up
as the lights go down,
staring through my window then,
on the Fourth of July.