"May we all fit together like this: trees, birds, sky, people, separate elements in a living portrait, outlines smoothed by the forgiving wash of lingering light. Whatever the skins we live in, the names we choose, the gods we claim or disavow, may we be like grains of sand on the beach at night: a hundred million separate particles creating a single expanse on which to lie back and study the stars. And may we remember the generosity of light: how it travels through unimaginable darkness, age after age, to light our small human night."