Nothing holds its truth for long enough.
Not our words, or our desires, our small fidelities
to our small fires — what we have loved on this earth and in one another.
By the time the light at the window can be named
it has already shifted. Words collapse. The place is in ruins.
Love spools out to vapour.
Home leaves us, not the other way around.
We don't reside. We just touch down.
But what was once true remains so, and although we must leave
everything, it is possible to return to what was sanctuary —
to enter the building, or the concert hall, or the act of love —
to see again the field of bright flowers — to open the book.
It is possible to return to what was sanctuary,
and find our shelter there.
About this Poem
Helen Humphreys read her previously unpublished poem “Prayer” before Kingston City Council on Tuesday 19 April 2016, in recognition of National Poetry Month and as part of this year’s Mayor’s Poetry City Challenge