Ann Beal, remembering

 

Ann Beal: Toward the Light

seven years have come and gone,

91 moons have risen and set, waxed and waned,

the world has changed in who we elect,

in how effectively we stumble forward, or don’t,

the world has changed, but we haven’t,

we are still a feckless people

who too easily forget to learn,

and lose ourselves to the lesser calls

that tell us who to be,

Ann heard the best of the callings

and followed them as well as she could,

like her ancestor, John Rogers, who helped Tyndall 

translate The Bible into accessible English,

Ann knew the Word, and followed it,

grasping at and holding the revelations

the great poets ventured in the grand design

of pulling us away from the mud

and back toward the greatness God hopes for us,

to be with Ann was to be 

in the presence of a spring that welled forth

and allowed us to comfort the dryness within us

with hope, with laughter, 

with the rightness of sharing the journey with a soul

who knew herself, and who knew what to listen to,

a soul who was just gloriously there,

Ann’s body is gone, but we can still follow her spirit

as she shows us how to move toward the Light.

by Henry H. Walker

May 29, ‘21