We walk a route on streets we name and know,
past gardens tucked and put to winter’s bed,
through brilliant leaves that dance and drift aglow
and carpet now the homeward path we tread.
The time and space of life thus circumscribed,
we live our span as strength and health allow
but chafe at limit strict these years imply
and wish our time-bound selves to disavow.
That impulse to o’erleap our finite frame,
the yearning wish for more beyond our reach,
distracts from all the goodness we should name,
the common daily gifts of love and peace.
The Son embraced our curtailed life profane
and fills it now with beauty unrestrained.