It’s hard to watch 

the hands of time, 

dismantling the past.

unscrewing memories, 

packing up the artifacts in boxes

to bury someplace. 

 

The house I loved,

taken board by board,

is not the place it was before—

but lonely,

struggling to stand, 

in a forgotten field. 

 

My elders—where are they?

Time has damaged them—

the strong ones, fragile as fallen leaves now,

the wise ones, stumbling on words and facts and ideas, 

the oldest ones, gone. 

 

And my friends—where are they? 

Settled on far off planets,

calling out when our orbits are closest—

Hello! How’s it going? So good to see you—

before spinning on their way.

How can they not ache

at the uncrossable space between us 

when once there was none?

 

And me—changed—

too big for that broken down house,

too tall to walk inside without stooping, 

too old to believe lies— 

and yet too much the same—

too pacifist to contradict,

too grieved to disappoint,

too myself to be who I am now

in the place I still love. 

 

I cannot stay. 

The LORD has given me a better place—

a road with room to grow into the sky,

a river of truth, pure as a mountain stream,

the perfect Shepherd-Friend to lead me—

and beyond the entropy of time,

a home.