Living Tree Poetry

Forever is another room.
It is behind the garden’s hedge,
too thick, too high to surmount.

It is behind the memory,
the way it teases us in dreams
to see further than the eye.

But, more than a storehouse for our histories,
or wellspring of our tomorrows,
it is a road

with no end or beginning
that we each find ourselves travelling upon,
even here, even now.

The boundlessness of our soul
a clue –

that this life, this garden hedge,
bed, cup, hands we each hold,
will all fall away

as we carry on as pilgrims on a journey.

Our forever room, large
as a prairie, wide with its roof of sky,
and distant hills, paths into the blue.

Our forever room, small
as a drop of dew teetering on the edge,
in which we are enclosed,

the knowledge beyond, too great for fathoming.

And yet, accompanied,
we are not beggars on the path,
but pilgrims with a staff, a light, a bed

at the end of each long day –
and company in the remembering,
in reunion, the recognition in waiting faces –

and the eternal light,
the embrace in which we’re held.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
December 31, 2020