The Waiting Line

The Waiting Line
How many more steps left to come?
How far? How many more away from?
Does every pilgrim leave something behind?
Do they serve too who only stand and wait?
And must stay outside the city gates?
Is a pilgrim only one once he arrives?
I will find my way back to the shrine

No beauty in the world compares
With virtue, cracked and hurt, repaired
Even if it hangs your sins out on a line
We will wash them in the fountains
That flow down that rolling mountain
Into the bay that bleaches them with brine
I will find my way back to the shrine
Help is on the way! believe!
The angels neither sigh nor grieve
But silently surround the waiting line.
I've turned my back on home and friendship
For a chance to see a kerchief
Waving from the window of a shrine
Whose threshold I'll collapse before I find