You Feel It

It's a curious thing, being alive—you feel it.

You feel the aliveness even in decay, in aches and pains.
You know life when the wind whispers in your ear,
and when the sun runs its fingers down your cheek.
And you feel alive when the wind is stiff, tries to tip you off a cliff,
when the sun burns your skin red and stains you with pain.

You feel the aliveness in beauty, in the ecstasy and the ache.
When music courses through your body to the gas pedal,
and when it courses down your face in briny drops.
When the sunset and the stars sing a symphony,
and when the storm clouds rage against your pane.

You feel the aliveness in the fear, propelling and suspending.
When terror races through your veins, pumping your legs,
and when it stings like ice, freezing your flight, your mind.
When you're so close to trepidation you can taste it,
you find that you feel frighteningly alive, alive, alive.

You feel the aliveness in hope, in its shock and comfort.
Someone offers a hug, a kind word, an unexpected gift,
and it jars your heart, opens eyes wide in surprise as they cry.
How can something so soothing still stun your soul?
See—impetuous generosity can change your life.

It's a haunting thing, being alive—you feel it.

You Have Come to Journey's End

 Dear Aaron,

I didn't know how this day would go; but I've known it was coming. . . I've known it for nearly a year now. Today is September 3rd, you see. A year ago today you thought your final mortal thought. Breathed your last breath. Faced your final fear. Was your parting thought a Switchfoot line? Was it a prayer? Were you afraid? Determined? Relieved? I don't know—and on this side of the Kingdom coming, I can't know. 

What I do know, is that for the last twelve years, I have thought of you as my elf-friend. How could you be anything but kin of Legolas, with your tousled blond hair and impish grin? With your skill in music and lyric-verse? With your love for the stars and the sea? You, a tree-lover and earth-wanderer, you must be of elven blood. So what song is more fitting in memory of three hundred and sixty-five days ago than this one?


INTO THE WEST

Lay down

Your sweet and weary head

The night is falling

You have come to journey's end

Sleep now

And dream of the ones who came before

They are calling

From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

How desperately I wish you were only sleeping. Sleeping—to awake at any minute and laugh with mirth over simple joys. . . Sunsets, snowflakes, songs strummed on the roof. I want you to be safe in my arms, no more clamouring fears, no longer weeping over your lost Love. But, oh! You sleep a different sleep. The unwaking-on-this-side sort of sleep, where you no longer dream of those who came before—you have crossed to the distant shore.

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All Souls pass


You, who spent so many years along the edges of the water, you know the mournful, lilting—haunting—cry of the gulls. Their voices break my heart and comfort me, all at once. Can you hear their calls? Perhaps for the rest of my life, whenever their voices reach my ears, I will think of you. You, battling the noise and wheeling confusion in your own mind. You, with a whoop of delight, rushing to ring a solitary church bell. You, taking a wounded gull to the bird lady, even though it cost you your job. You, your soul home at last.

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping
And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West

The last year has felt like one hell of a dark night. Like hope fading and shadows falling. So many memories have crowded in on me—or eluded me. For months (and even still), I wanted someone who knew you to talk with me about you. I just wanted to hear a new story, an old memory—something tangible to remind me of you. My grief is different than the ragged storm it was in those first weeks and months. But different doesn't mean absent. Sometimes the storm redoubles and leaves me gasping for breath. Sometimes, just beneath the calm surface, grief runs hard like a riptide. 

Don't tell me we have come now to the end. It can't be the end already. It's too soon. Too soon, can't you see? I don't want you to be across the waters, I don't want you to have answered the call of those gleaming, distant shores. I don't want you to be there without me. So many years ago you set sail, away from me and from unmoving earth. You sailed out into the pitching waves. Did you ever look back? Or did you set your face, unyielding, toward the sunset? 

A lithe grey ship has passed into the West. Yet you and I will meet again. You better be ready for a bear hug, O Westward One. Do you remember quoting Wordsworth to me, years ago? Let me return the gift, as tears of rain pour blessed relief upon this night. . .

‘What, you are stepping westward?'—'Yea.’

—'Twould be a wildish destiny. . .

The dewy ground was dark and cold;

Behind, all gloomy to behold;

And stepping westward seemed to be

A kind of heavenly destiny. . .

— William Wordsworth, Stepping Westward

       

  

"Into the West" Songwriters: Howard Shore / Philippa Boyens / Annie Lennox