Perhaps, nearing the end, we can find again

What was lost through no fault of our own;

Remembering with no regrets or remorse,

Seeking out those few places we had known

And belonged and never thought we’d leave;

As if in returning we could really come back

To find our only innocence waiting there.

Following sixty years to the house I first knew

There is something reverent and sacramental

In finding a church now on that holy ground,

And I hear myself remembering a child’s prayer.

Perhaps, nearing the end, what we seek again

Is not the innocence of a time and a place

But the deathless grace of our first lost religion.