The elders are leaving one by one,
Slipping silently into the quiet dawn.
One by one, till all are gone.
The changing of the guard is done,
Quietly, without fanfare or speech.
Their work on Earth is over
And with the ending of the guard,
The new elders now shoulder
The responsibilities that they held,
Those ancestors of eld.
We will miss the tales they told of old,
The old familiar songs
But the bell, it tolls and tolls and tolls
Until each one is gone.
Silently, our tears drop on the coffin,
Our past is slowly done
Day by day the next day comes
Without us even seeing
That it isn’t the past we’re living for
But the present that is our being.
The present that is our being,
And the growth that is our future.
God knows why we are here,
When we have not even one thought why
His great love puts us here
To lend a hand to another
A sister, a brother,
Until we die--
No, not die wholly
But rather move,
Move into God’s presence
Our soul, our essence,
A new kind of birth--
No longer of this Earth.