You Remain

Each of you remain
Around my wandering spirit I pitched a tent.
Your compassion softened the frozen ground;
Your enthusiasm lengthened the day;
Your sincerity illuminated our faces
    as we sat and shared stories
Around a campfire of otherwise insignificant moments.

Placed here
You question to encourage my conviction;
You challenge to unsettle my complacency;
You disrupt with unintentional grace
    as planned order collapses
Into spontaneous fits of inanity.

Each of you remain
Briefly we are each seen and shared.
You are impactful by your persistence;
You are relevant by your uniqueness;
You successfully created a world
    celebrating us as we are and anxious
For what we must becoming.

Leaving here
You are reflected in simple traditions;
You are demonstrated in the lives you changed;
You remain - each one - a tent peg
    staked still in the earth we shared,
Shared in story with those still to come.

I remain
A settling spirit, more
Beautiful because of what you believed us all to be;
A temporary home made more permanent,
    by each peg driven, a story,
Around a campfire of otherwise insignificant moments.