“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love, I am only a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:1
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There is no time to be lost. Who can lose by giving?
No one. Never. Who can lose by holding back?
Everyone. Always. We have paid the cost.
We are breathing in between yesterday and tomorrow.
We know how to win without boasting
or lose without excuse. Peace cannot be waxing
it helps to take a deeper breath.
I saw you standing quietly under the balcony, that night.
214 Bay 14th Street. Brooklyn, New York.
I called your name. Our heartbeat echoes burned
the street, a stillness broken before dawn,
in the name of all that is hailed, in the name of
our very present, in the face of it all—
the remaining past unclaimed, driven forth by love.
Waiting for a miracle—
we are speechless, but we know language of silence,
spinning chaos into order, looking for an exit—
trying to recall a memory of us in the great affliction
of time. Our past seconds are our roots.
All the constellations are our eyes.
Our seeds are our thoughts. Listening to your voice
on the other side of silence gives me the courage to lose
sight and swim there, your voice is hope trusting the future.
It calls me now: we are what we hear, doubt is deadlier,
but fear cuts deeper than air, and we are not moving toward
revenge, we forgive the world its own loneliness.
David Dephy
September 10, 2020
New York
