The Holy In-Between

Two messages arrive

within the same breath of time,

one opening,

one loosening.

 

A first cry

breaking the stillness,

life remembering how to begin

with astonishment.

 

And elsewhere,

a room growing quiet,

language setting itself down,

love learning how to speak

without words.

 

And I am here,

not by design,

but by calling,

standing where time thins

and eternity leans close.

 

They say we are born into life,

but I wonder

if we arrive from something vaster,

still carrying the warmth

of forever.

 

And they say we die out of life,

yet I have watched the way

the air thickens with meaning,

how presence grows heavier

when breath grows light.

 

After eternity, we are born,

into hands,

into names,

into the fierce tenderness

of now.

 

And in dying,

we do not vanish;

we are gathered,

drawn back through the veil

from which we came.

 

Perhaps there are not two shores at all,

but one long, listening beach,

where the tide comes in singing

and leaves in silence.

 

Some arrive

wet with wonder,

crying out at the shock of air.

 

Some lie still

as the water loosens its hold,

trusting the pull that knows them

without words.

 

The sand remembers them all.

The same ground

receives the first footprint

and the last.

 

This life,

this fragile, blazing in-between -

is the narrow stretch of shore

we are trusted to walk

together.

 

And some of us

are asked to keep watch here,

barefoot at the edge,

holding joy without grasping,

holding grief without fixing,

 

listening for the single note

beneath the first cry

and the final breath

 

the same music,

the same sea,

turning

again

and again.