Remembering Ed

A hole was ripped in the canopy of trees

And dazzling light flooded the space you once filled

In that light we saw our smallness, challenged by how well you had lived

And as the four strong oaks you planted gave testimony

To all you were, giving shade to so many

I realised how as a small child playing around the edges of conversations

Ideas exchanged between you, my parents and other beautiful revolutionaries

Had dropped like seeds into my thinking

Sowing a mind that values human brotherhood

Values that open-door kind of home I saw

A mind that follows the Maker as best as my clay-clod feet permit

Now looking at my child playing around the edges of my conversations

I pray I can follow in your slipstream, dear Godfather

That we may all, generation after generation, become that forest the prophet spoke of:

Oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of his splendour

(Isaiah 61:3)