After the end of this light and darkness
there will be a silence, a peace,
something of the endlessness of the sea
or the sky, passing our understanding
with its grace, its clean, clear presence
in which we stand and sing
new songs of the Lamb, His sacrifice
in body and in blood
that has become pure love and spirit
like the wind, the rain, or light itself.

After the end we will rejoice,
reclaimed from pain and suffering,
lifting our voices out of the darkness
and its heavy, weighted silence
like children in a choir on Sunday morning
listening to the rising intonations of the organ,
clothed in white, containing every color,
every tribe and every tongue
speaking in the tongue of the Spirit
pouring like pure water out of the jar
of the waterbearer in the stars
moving above the surface of the waters
before time began its long heartbeat
through the ages of man and his empires.

In this garden we see a remnant,
a fragment, of what that poet
tried to capture in stone
as if he could put a living man
in a looking glass;

There, on the distant hills,
the Coliseum, the Sphinx,
The Great Wall of China
crumble slowly into the dust;

The Mona Lisa, the Waterlilies,
The Starry Night
fade in the bright light;

Michaelangelo's David
breaks and cracks
and returns to the Earth
from whence it came.

Moving among us
is the true Spirit,
living, lifting
creation upon creation,
the glory of the flowers
in every face uplifted,
the bird songs in every voice,
the mountains and the snow capped peaks
the place to which we climb now
in our upraised thoughts.

And above the mountains
the stars

and above the stars
the Morning Star,
the one, true light
of our new world.