Holding Our Hands

Dine on loving kindness
like each moment is a savory morsel
of beauty and words
the lingual equivalent
of something sticky and double chocolate.

Fill yourself with joy;
a banquet armed with laughing
until you cry,
until your sides ache,
until you surrender your face
to endless smiles that cause wrinkles
that prove happiness
at the end of your days.

Take, eat
all that is given up for you
in friendship and the shared sorrows
that are delivered to your door,
unexpected as an embrace,
for no good reason
other than to carry the warmth
of our soul's home fire
to the stranger
who has become
our sweetest companion
holding our hands
around the table
in prayer.