Homecoming

One night,

after a thousand years of running the kingdom alone,

the tired king of your heart

heard a small knock inside his chest.

He opened the door

and found a child . . .

mud on her feet, light in her eyes,

carrying the sun she had stolen

from her own tomorrow.

“Do you remember me?” she asked.

“I have been guarding your wonder.”

The king fell to his knees.

All his armor turned to rain.

Every rule he’d written about strength and survival

melted into the dust at her feet.

They sat together in the ruins

and the ruins began to bloom.

The child said,

“Please, don’t teach me anymore.

Just watch the sky with me.

”And the king said,

“I forgot it could be that blue.”

In that gaze,

centuries folded like paper cranes . . .

the parent and the child,

the watcher and the wild,

the wound and the grace,

finally breathing the same breath.

And Love . . .

that great quiet river . . .

whispered through their bones,

Beloved, you were never two.

You were the seed and the blossom,

the hand and the held,

the prayer and the answer,

becoming each other . . .

all along.