With this act of caring

With this act of caring,
we all have come
to this ceremony
of one lasting loving.

It is a circle we
have come into,
full and entire,
knowing and free.

And the circle is us
meeting up
and seeing
what seeing does
to our mind,
we who begin
to see all there is
what healing is.

It is wisdom
we gain
as we give back,
care more,
love back,
love again and again
even those who come
to our lives
for the first
and final time.

By the care
in our hands
we shall know
how much love
we can offer
how much we can give
some more
until the hurting
tells us
to not to stop
but give more
until none
is left for us.

In this life
we all have come
to feel the pain
of living and not being loved.
But it does not matter now.
It does not matter now.

In this life we
all have come to seek
we all have come to find
that which shows us
the colors of rainbows
in their riots
with sad sundowns
lonely sunsets
despair with no name
desolation without the heart
fear without the daring
aloneness without the courage
in the fire of longing
from a warm hand,
its touch soothing
even as the hours get to be
dark
darker
darkest
in an abyss without love.

Alone we were born,
as if in the lone bed in a corner,
cold, crying without the sound
when sickness strikes
and time becomes eternal
in our backs, sheets, legs
in our hearts
as we nurse back our bodies
to another act
of coming alive.

We see the same
in the homes we create somehow,
found somehow,
in the charts of the sick
we have come to seek,
care for, love,
them who need us
them whom we need more
in this mirroring of our lives,
our selves, our fates,
them in longing for longing
to come about at last
us in the act of loving
or of learning how.

It is not easy, this logic
of caregiving for the least
as we in the end
care for ourselves the least.

Then again, even evenings
give birth to mornings
and the hope we bring
is the same healing we sing,
sing of the morrows
that life in the spring will bring,
the same healing we sing,
as in the coming days,
bright and fulfilling,
the storms of the night long gone,
lost in the sun.

The wards of hospitals
the linen sheets
the eeire quiet of death beds
will not threaten us.

They will whisper to us
what human salvation is
what rewards redemption has,
all these to welcome us
to this full circle
of knowing finally how to care.

We will do best for the least,
to the least we give our best,
the least will give us rest
the calm of our souls, blessed.


A Solver Agcaoili
Honolulu, HI
September 30, 2006

(Written for the candle light ceremony, Health Care Career and Training Center, Dillingham, Hon, HI, Sept 30, 2006)