A Poem: Communion

Walk long enough,
stand still on the street
in the soft moonlight
and see how everything you have missed
has come to find you.

It is when we are out there,
encircled by twilight bird song,
beckoned by emerging stars,
that everything inside fades
behind drawn curtains.

And all outside starts to expand,
illuminate in a way that is not
just the rising moon
or the lattice of leaves against a sky,
but is our own souls pressing at their seams.

Seeking breadth,
height, width,
and asking the moon
and the fresh evening air, if we too
can partake of the communion here,

become central to this holy world,
like the birds
who’ve never ventured away.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
May 2021