What Remains

 

What belongs to us?
Not the winter-wild waves,
roaring in to shore,
not the long sandy beach
stretching all before,
not the soaring eagles,
flying up so high,
drifting on the currents,
wind-surfing the sky.

 No guarantee, the days ahead,
in rain or golden sun,
nor our plans and all the chores,
begun and not yet done.

Not the gifts just opened,
not the shelves of books,
for one day I must leave behind
everything that I
once took.

Even this body
with its span
of increasingly finite days
will take its leave
on time,
not mine to question
Heaven's ways.

What remains:
this day, this hour,
the sky-show out my window,
walks on the beach,
gratitude in my heart,
a forest trail
to follow.

The lifetime of love
I gathered and gave,
the lost ones
whom
I could not save,
the memories
I hold most dear.
What stays is love;
love perseveres.