Stay With Us
oh my troubled lovely,
oh my weeping daisy,
oh my fading candle,
oh my broken beauty,
oh my crumbling stronghold,
stay with us
here on Earth
don’t rapture yourself;
~ we need you – we need you
– we need you – we need you
before you decide to leave,
sit with me here in your unmade self
at the edge of your unmade bed
and listen to me
tell you one last secret
oh my tearful songbird,
if you can find
a way to
survive long
enough
someday you’ll become
the answer to somebody
else’s most desperate prayer
by just being there in
the same room that they are in
~ as they gently fall apart
and in that moment
you won’t need to say anything
you’ll just drape your hands
over theirs like a Good Friday altar cloth
until they believe in resurrection again
~ that’s why you can’t give up
your life will someday be the rainbow
at the end of someone else’s storm
if you aren’t still here
when they fall off
the bridge
then who will be there to catch them?
I know it’s not quite fair
~ but your life isn’t just yours
it also belongs to that person
who is going to need you
to be alive later
you are part of the community
of unintended angels
who has a sacred calling
of surviving your darkest night
so someday you can be the
sunrise for somebody else who
will need you to prove to them
that daybreak always returns
oh my clouding diamond,
oh my shaking sunflower,
oh my doubting saint,
oh my disappearing moon,
oh my quieting symphony
stay here
with us
on Earth
because if you do
you will save a dozen lives
by first saving your own
it’s the great pyramid scheme
of hope
you must persist
so they can watch how you persist
turn this riptide you
are drowning under
into a ripple
of hope
that stretches
through time
that you can ride until
you reach that one moment
in your life where you’ll find yourself
in a quiet room with somebody
who wants to become a shadow
and you’ll be able to say to them
with authority the same thing
I am saying to you right now:
“oh my troubled lovely,
oh my weeping daisy,
oh my fading candle,
oh my broken beauty,
oh my crumbling stronghold
stay with us
here on Earth
don’t rapture yourself
we need you…”
~ unintended angels
of comfort,
pray for us ~
(john roedel)
art by the singularly amazing Charlie Mackesy