This Brightening Silence

"Hush now for soon will come our grey angel

On wings of canvas rising from the foam

She'll draw us up across her bow

Hold us fast and point us home

And in the meanwhile we make our exchanges breath for spirit

Salt for ice, flesh for stone, words yet unbroken

For olden ways of blood memory

As our life's storm fades

From this brightening silence

Now as one

We cradle in the bow

Stretching full its worth to strain oblivion

To force a crack that grows

Splintering death itself to pieces

While she, with us safely stowed in her berth

Lifts her wing o'er the breaking floes

That fall way beneath us

As our light rushes in"