–John McCutcheon (2003)
At the moment they brought me the message,
I was oceans and hours away;
Wondering what I was doing
At the moment that you slipped away.
At the moment I’m looking out windows
At a night that holds only one star.
In the morning it’s gone,
Though I know it’s still shining afar.
At the moment we raise up our voices,
And a bit of our soul is set free;
I’m still humbled and awed by the beauty
Of that small part of you that’s in me.
We laughed, we danced on the table,
And confounded the silence with song.
In the dark of this night
It still echoes so brightly and stong.
I don’t look for reward ever after,
For I hold this life much too dear.
From what I can tell, both heaven and hell,
We create in abundance right here.
When the fire that burned has been ashes,
And the stories have all been retold;
The heat and the light will sustain us,
Long after the hearth has grown cold.
Grief has a place at the table,
For it’s part of what we’re each made of,
And it’ll stay long enough
To remind us it’s mother is love.
At the moment our lives become memory,
And all of our dreaming is done;
We shed what it is makes us different,
And we don what it is makes us one.
What is memory but time rendered timeless,
Some small proof we each live anew;
And I refuse to surrender
That small part of me that is you.
Some mark their days by the hours,
Some mark their days by the signs.
Me, I look to that star;
Wherever we are, we will shine.