How Best To Serve

Midnight and the mind moves in its rounds,

Sleep does not come and rest is barely won.

I am aware of high nocturnal sounds,

Disturbing crickets piercing call begun

Shall not end soon but carry through the night.

Yet I am in another space, a peace

Settled in the heart knows all is right

And from the body's pain will find release.

I must close the book on all things past

Except for souls who helped this soul progress.

A new chapter with a chosen cast

Has opened up my book of days to bless

With nurturing word and firm and loving hands,

To tear the cloth of sorrow from my back

And walk with me towards those sunlit lands,

To keep me steady on the narrow track,

For to my left there yawns the great abyss

And to my right the heavens of the just

Promising a life of unspoiled bliss.

But I move on, half-blind yet filled with trust.

I know my goal lies in a newer age

Somewhere beyond where the unsung music waits

In a golden book with page on illumined page

In realms beyond those Paradisal gates

Where those who dare the precipice to climb

Shall bring to earth the secret of all song

The beauty that is uneffaced by time

The power and the will to right each wrong,

To follow One who is changing all by grace,

And will by love redeem this world of woe,

All grief and human suffering replace.

How best to serve is all I need to know.