Why We Sing

Why We Sing
Tomorrow may take what we build.
Still, we will build.
Still, we will sing.

When came rain
not a metaphor at first,
just rain through the ceiling,
rain over the careful little house
our hands had raised together.

The storm does not check
whether you were blessed.
It finds the loose boards.
It takes the painted sign.
It teaches even the strongest
the grammar of starting again.

So we stood there, soaked and laughing
that strange, relieved laughter
of people who have lost the roof
but not each other.

I learned that knowledge
is not a ladder out of sorrow.
It is a lamp we carry down the road,
where the old grow gentler,
where the young grow brave,
where every life has weather,
and everybody its winter.

There is music in the mending:
a hammer’s beat,
a friend’s low harmony,
the rain easing off the leaves.

Tonight, I will not climb
just to stand above the crowd.
I will stand among them,
hold the door,
forgive the sky its thunder,
and celebrate the ground beneath us.

Tomorrow may take what we build.
Still, we will build.
Still, we will sing.