Hold door!

 the dark calls out the light

I keep hearing and acting upon Dylan Thomas’s fears:

the light is dying, and what should we do?

each of our lives can shine with impertinent flare,

a flare that challenges the darkness,

both before and after the day, the fire, 

the hope every moment wants to birth,

I work to make my own life matter,

I work to celebrate every life

that can matter, that has mattered,

I write of one we have lost to our next moments,

I seek to see who they have been,

to see the effort of their choices,

to see the effects of their choices,

I record some of those I know,

some of those I have known,

on the video that Zoom allows, and enables,

and I hope the website I maintain with such sharings

is good enough for people to beat a path to its shared door,

as a species, I fear for us,

for the Dark calls, and the Light may not hold.

by Henry H. Walker

February 3 ‘22