[to the people of Korea for the loss of their children on a holiday ferry-april the year of Our Lord, 2014]
I know they will be singing.
you will hear the singing before the ship is sighted.
long before. the upright ship holding precious cargo.
enfolding them.
you will wake up in broad moonlight
thinking you heard the ripple of waters disturbed.
it will not be the waters of sleep.
they will be self-assured.
with aureoles around them
golder than the gold of the Florentine masters.
or of their angels.
rubies will no longer flow from the wounds.
the wounds will close.
as the wounded waters once closed over them.
the beautiful on starry waters.returning
no longer the turgid stillness
rippling doom.
you will see the opposite shore
where they were welcomed
even as you wept.
the one made of pure crystal.
you will know it's true.
your tears will dry.
the tears of a thousand aprils away from home.
your tears will dry in the salt air
for the beautiful on starry waters
going home.
mary angela douglas 28 april 2014
Note on the poem: maybe somewhere there is a language with two distinct self-contained,words,needing no modifiers but derived from the same root but with a subtle difference in the vowels that would settle the heart and the matter of grieving for those who have gone before us in death. And one word would mean, home on earth and the other would mean home in Heaven. As it is in English though, it is the same word for the same heaven so that those leaving us are still returning Home.
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