-for Mike

  there is always light—
and the silence of a heron trailing drops of water across the moon—
a slender alder leaning in the wind off a hidden lake

good black earth turned by a shining blade
and the whirr of quail when we were looking at something else—
wondering about, what? we hardly remember...except the whirr
of wings or the bell-like voices of hounds in the timber—

these things must always be—

   and Christmas lights like jewels in windows
   in cities with people going in and coming out
   together—
and pictures of strange worlds with baskets of globed fruit
and fields of hot grain popping in the sun
as we bicycle past far away from home together—
these things must always be—

there must be and were quiet nights of no talk
books—musing by a fire—
jarred by sudden sounds of sorrow—looking up, wondering...
   yet not our hearts sorrowing,
   our linked hands—unbroken still—
 love mending our hearts broken against the world

     these things must always be
because we touched the holy waters of morning
and heard the loons cry beyond the wooded islands
of our hopes—
   and we are together in ways as yet unknown to this world,
   no, not unknown—dreamed of—hoped for—
   waiting to feel the tug of that silken thread unrolling before eternity
   pulling, us... oh slowly...together...

   these things we were...these things we are now and forever—
   we must not doubt the possibilities of this greening earth
   and the fire that breaks from upturned roses—

   these things must always be—these lovely things must always be

* Dr. Pamela M. Jolicoeur, the Tenth President of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota,
died 9 June 2010.