While I was sleeping, seven billion
homeless wanderers came to my door
(I know you were one of them)
wanting a mug of yesterday's coffee
and some toll house cookies my
grandmother taught me how to bake.
This is why I keep my heart ajar
all through the Winter dark, a sliver
of me unlocked to hear the shuffling
socks of humanity come down the hall
of my breathing (I know you took off
your shoes when you came in)
to rest a little while in my kitchen
by the candle's flickering pool of
loneliness until at last we're all
gathered again, absently staring
through widening rings of embryonic
moonlight not yet shaped by
uncertainty into ourselves.
No need for me to say to you
who wander uninvited here,
"Welcome, rest and drink.”
Some evening I may find your own
leftovers warmed and ready for me
in the small but generous kitchen
of your own broken heart
(have you baked them yet?)
because I know our sleeplessness
out-spirals the stars, wending
the circumference of a hug
( I around you around me)
arriving at a place beyond the night
where death comes home to
breathe and be born.
Illustration from Grandfather Twilight, Barbara Berger
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