The light has traveled for all time <br />And now its journey ended refracts and splinters in the atmosphere <br />Then splits and hurls itself toward all we far flung tribes <br />Draws us past our unwatched borders on the edges of the day <br />Far into the windy roar and arid sweep <br />Of a newfound empty land <br /> <br />We refugees <br />Our yearning families <br />Of empty-handed hunters <br />And all the other caravans of nomads <br />Squint toward the vast and plunging arc of the horizon <br />Repeating over and again <br />Old spells and sorceries learned in some dead age <br />To build a breathing thing from nothing <br />To conjure hope <br />A golden family with widespread arms <br />From sand and bits of air <br /> <br />We wander as we always have <br />Across the continents and oceans <br />While night and day race each other through the longitudes <br />Past other lives and times and seasons <br /> <br />There is no corner of the verdant planet left unknown <br />And still no place to make our homes <br /> <br />The end of the millennium falls behind us in our wake <br />Pilgrims in long columns erase the distance <br />With each step <br /> <br />At last converging <br />We are like cordial strangers <br />Who crowd together in a darkened room <br />Not frightened but impatient <br />We have come so far but still must wait a little longer <br /> <br />Bright sounds of company and laughter <br />Sift through a bolted doorway <br />The soft red glow of firelight <br />Pours across the transom <br /> <br />The multitudes wait quietly <br />They are no longer fearful of the dark <br />They know their time to pass into the light <br />Is near enough to touch <br />And closer than a pulse away<br /><br />James Andrews<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/caravans/
