If I Should Pass With Sorrows
by Lynn Michael Martin
If I should pass with sorrows,
and softly slip away
with the first gray gleam of the morning
of a gently dawning day;
if I should see no sunrise,
nor watch the night be gone,
tell me, when you meet me tomorrow
of the rising of the sun.
He it was whose face I studied
through the long cold hours of night,
as the lonely dark crept nearer,
and the wind had stilled my light.
For I feared I should not linger
until the night were gone,
or see the light’s first fire
at the rising of the sun.
If I should pass with sorrows,
and so should slip away,
remember the fleeing shadow
and the sun of the deathless day!
For I shall not bow to darkness
while the night is but half-gone—
while I wait for the songs of the triumph
of the rising of the sun.
Lynn Martin believes that the essence of the universe is joy, and that in poetry there should shine both the earth’s joy and a light from beyond the world.
Photography by Zachary Pierce