SANCTUARY

There is Irish blood, gift of immigrant flood,
Coursing through my veins;
There is no life whole without a stroll
Down ancestral memory lanes.

The father of my mother came,
O’er a century ago,
From Yeats’ “Terrible Beauty”
That I one day must know.

No man can come home again:
‘Tis not the days of yore;
But time can’t still the silent call….
“I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

Then, at last, the moment came,
And I never felt so free
As the day I left to travel back
To my roots across the sea.

Now I, too, have seen and walked
The land time can’t forget;
Now I, too, have known and breathed
The peace that’s yearning yet.

And when I die tomorrow,
I’ll soft-greet eternity —
For I have been where the spirit’s at rest,
And I’ll return again….to Innisfree.