You knew our names
and called them out as
clearly as a beloved's.
You summoned our
brightest beats from
their hiding spaces;
you held them up to view
with untrimmed delight.
We will build a fire
in the center of the night
in the middle of a river
that you not mistake us
standing alone one
by one yearning toward the sound
of your voice, gone now
but still wrapped around us,
proof against the chill.
Wendell M. Tomlin, Jr. 2008