The Road to Emmaus

I walk the road to Emmaus.

Not because I know
where it leads,

but because
it is the only road
left to walk.

I do not know
whether the stranger beside me
is God,

or the universe,

or the deeper self
that has waited patiently
beneath years of fear,

or only
the echo
of my own longing
learning to speak
in a gentler voice.

I no longer ask.

There was a time
when I demanded answers,
when certainty
seemed holier than wonder.

Now
I am content
to let the silence
keep its secrets.

It is enough,
for now,
that I keep walking.

The road
has become my teacher.

The dust
my companion.

The wind
my prayer.

I have learned
that grief
does not forbid beauty.

That beauty
does not erase grief.

They walk together,
hand in hand,
like old friends
who have finally
stopped arguing.

So I create
while I wait.

I write
because the words
wish to be found.

I make music
because some things
must be sung
before they can be understood.

I love
while I grieve.

I laugh
without apologising
to sorrow.

I sit beside the sea.

I listen
to birds,
to silence,
to the spaces
between notes.

I wait.

Not for certainty.

Not for every wound
to close.

But for the slow recognition
that perhaps
I have never walked alone.

If there is a home,

it will not be conquered.

It will not be argued into existence.

It will not arrive
with trumpets
or perfect doctrine.

It will reveal itself

the way evening
finds the hills,

the way dawn
touches the olive trees,

the way bread,
broken in ordinary hands,
becomes something
more than bread.

One step
at a time.

Until one day

perhaps I will turn

and discover

that what I thought
was the end of the journey

was only the moment

I finally recognised

the Stranger

who had been walking beside me

all along.