Lori Hoeck

The dusty halls ring silent
Where light and warmth have fled.
All is hushed in this abode
Where the living live as dead,
Where days and nights cry aloud
To an end of quietness
When no more a soul must shrink aback
From the touch of human kindness.
Oh to quit this house of masks
Through which a guarded heart peers.
Oh to run into the light
And shed this cloak of fears.
But the door to here is bolted shut,
Built to stand against all stress.
It can’t be opened with guile or strength,
But only with warm gentleness.
And when that humble soul comes calling,
With the heart of a gentle friend,
Then gone will be the gloomy masks
And the living shall live again.

—

I wrote this poem in 1993.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck