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 We pilgrims dress in the camouflage of gray:
Not truly hidden from sight--not properly invisible,
Simply the nondescript, the travelers who
Wear smiles just enough, speak just enough
To be unremarkable and readily forgotten.
We are hiding, you see.

Under the plain clothes, our hearts ache,
Forever tasting the bittersweetness of undoing beauty
As it seeps into joints, thoughts, unending daydreams.
But it is a pain contained: we melt into words
That lie dormant on our tongues,
Hiding out of sight when lips spread to utter
The merely commonplace and mundane.

Oh, but there is a meeting and a moment:
For a few days, brief span of life's spectrum,
We find one another. We walk together.
And we flow into a softer space,
Where thoughts, words, images recognize each other,
Set fire to the fellow soul;
In the burning, there is joy.

The white feather of the dove.
The black feather of the raven.
Such tokens, I give you.
Not as symbols: soft wisp of edge, delicately veined;
Not as physical objects: soaked with mysteries and chants.
All is the simplicity of itself
And the communication of every other.
For at the crossroads, we part--doomed wanderers,

Yet not lonely: there is the starry heaven.