For Lance and Sally, with huge thanks

some reflections ... June 2021

Old enough now to know
there’s no such thing as parting...
Friends and family who have passed through death
are suddenly with us,
at unexpected corners,
maybe at mealtimes.
And returning repeatedly, we hear:
“Let no one be a stranger”.

You picked up your guitar and sang —
Bob Dylan’s song, poignant and powerful,
for the children, for us all,
and the answers filled the wind:
Credo quia incertum est or, impossibile.
Because we know,
like Thomas, not needing
to feel the wounded flesh.
Every Sunday, every day
we learned a little more, grew stronger.
Through winter’s sleet and hail and howling wind
trapped and confined.
Then covid diminishing and spring returning,
finally free to feel the outside air,
resurrections along the dark canals.

So, filled with resurrections,
and very courageous,
umbrellaed by your blessing
we go forth in peace
our hearts burning within us — yes,
knowing enough,
singing about power transmuted into love

(Wendie Shaffer, Amsterdam)