On lighter feet and with brighter eyes

we have set out on this journey.

With heads held higher and shoulders back

we turn our faces toward the dawn.

The song in our hearts carries on the wind

as our voices sing out our anthem –

life over death and hope in our chests,

what was broken is bound and set right again.

We carry no misconceptions.

Our minds are far from naïve.

Darkness always follows the setting of the sun

and lurks in the unknown places,

but we who were born into that darkness

have found for ourselves a marvelous sight.

There shining in the depths of blackness

a light so dim at the beginning,

but growing and consuming the fear that bound us

until we were bathed in its brilliance

and blinded by its radiance.

So into that light we have come,

and through that light we have passed

from nothingness into existence.

Far be it from us to forget such beginnings

or the demise we narrowly escaped.

Far be it from us to walk on pretending

that destruction is not so close on our heels,

but we know in the light that such devastation

no longer holds the deed to our souls.

Nor do we dread what once did enslave us,

for those chains are broken and the bars torn asunder,

and we have died to what once held us.

So with our song we carry on,

our backs to the graves behind us.

Now alive with today in our hand,

we who have breath carry on,

awake and yet dreaming, blind and yet seeing,

we shine as we walk to the sun.