Caravans Poem by James Andrews

The light has traveled for all time
And now its journey ended refracts and splinters in the atmosphere
Then splits and hurls itself toward all we far flung tribes
Draws us past our unwatched borders on the edges of the day
Far into the windy roar and arid sweep
Of a newfound empty land

We refugees
Our yearning families
Of empty-handed hunters
And all the other caravans of nomads
Squint toward the vast and plunging arc of the horizon
Repeating over and again
Old spells and sorceries learned in some dead age
To build a breathing thing from nothing
To conjure hope
A golden family with widespread arms
From sand and bits of air

We wander as we always have
Across the continents and oceans
While night and day race each other through the longitudes
Past other lives and times and seasons

There is no corner of the verdant planet left unknown
And still no place to make our homes

The end of the millennium falls behind us in our wake
Pilgrims in long columns erase the distance
With each step

At last converging
We are like cordial strangers
Who crowd together in a darkened room
Not frightened but impatient
We have come so far but still must wait a little longer

Bright sounds of company and laughter
Sift through a bolted doorway
The soft red glow of firelight
Pours across the transom

The multitudes wait quietly
They are no longer fearful of the dark
They know their time to pass into the light
Is near enough to touch
And closer than a pulse away