Six Stanzas: for Natasha and Johnny with my thanks to Galway Kinnell         You stand together, side by side, and read the book of what will be, while the wind is blowing the pages over....     Now you come to your own story. The happy beginning, the ending, happy or not, you don't know, the numberless words on countless pages that fill all the days in between...     You feel, at times, the shock that love is not always easy. For the God of love is also the God of power who makes his way onward.     Carefully you read every page where, somewhere, the glorious prize is waiting for you, even between pages of the slow going, where only those who, like you, adore each other in truth can find it.     When the time comes to set out again, you will walk together, hand in hand, bringing the laughter of childhood along as far as you can, until you hear, in the distance, above time and sorrow,     your children playing, dancing, laughing at all that seemed so serious once: offering you the gift of their light, fearless hearts, for you to accept in gladness. *************************************     Elfie Raymond, Montrose Park, July 6, 1996