Moon at Half Past Noon

My heart is a crowded room,
A gallery of light and gloom.
Not one of silence, not of fear,
But filled with voices I hold dear.

The laughter from a sunlit day
Has found a corner where to stay.
The whispered hope, the fragile dream,
Each adds a flicker to the gleam.

A chair is held for sorrow’s weight,
A space where tears can dissipate.
A window for the joy that soars,
And footprints left on distant shores.

The child I was, the self to be,
Are mingling there for all to see.
A constant, gentle, humming sound
On this beloved, hallowed ground.

So do not think it is a mess,
This state of beautiful distress.
For every guest, both lost and found,
Makes my heart’s complicated sound.

My heart is a crowded room,
Banishing all the sterile gloom.
A testament to life lived wide,
With love and longing side by side.

And in that blessed, human press,
I find my truest tenderness.
For every scar and every grace
Has earned its necessary space.