All Hallow's Compline

Lord.
At this time each year, in which we remember
those we love whose struggles and joys
in this life are exchanged in the
beatific bounty of eternity, I remember
a son loved, loved and lost in a brief space of knowing.

Your tabernacles and palaces, so oft regaled, cannot,
at least in the limits of my imagination, contain
the affection that accompanied the farewells bidden
at his leaving. They do not encompass grief or
accommodate sorrow as a fit lodging. And so my sorrow has
no refuge to which to flee and my grief has
no shadow in which to hide.

They are earthbound in the extreme,

While the tabernacles and palaces where he now roams are
infinite and eternal. The gulf cannot be bridged

Except in my praise which visits your holy places
for a brief space and in that brief space shares place
with those who there roam.

And so, in scarce visitation, I remember my lost son.
In my praise I join again all those I have loved and
lost to hallowed courts.