Elegy

The amber sun is setting in a pale and purple sky. Yesterday this sky wept its fill, in torrents, thunderclaps its keening.  But tonight, its somber eyes are dry.  Courage shall be the sterner - minds must be this much more resolute.  There's a rhythmic cricket hum. 

... the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

- John 1:5

Why was the town so quiet? Why weren’t the church bells flailing in a wild call to prayer? Last night as I was walking I wanted to run up to knock on doors and stop strangers and cry out, "don't you know? Wake up! A good man died today, for you, for us..." And then it occurred to me - perhaps this is the honor he would choose.  Could there be a better legacy, one more akin to his voice, than to leave us calling out from door to door, "wake up! remember! The good man who was God once died for us...”  Because of that death this hero lives.  But here in the evening the earth is bereft: compassion, ambition, and truth without apology - silenced in an instant. 

A quail of some sort is moaning over and again, somewhere in the grass not too far away, what will you do? what will you do?  One wild and precious life.  

Thoughts shall be the more resolute,     Hearts the keener,
Spirits shall be the greater,     Though our strength grows less.

 - Battle of Maldon

In every free and living breeze - don't let this be in vain.  Let us be the sleeping giant wakened, let us be filled with a terrible resolve.  Resolve to do what, I don't yet know, but idleness, stagnation, silence - these are no longer options.  The nagging old voice in my head says, "what could you do?" Be gone.  Here I am - send me.  I cling to Your promise to Jeremiah: my words will not be heard. Yours will. 

Hearts shall be the keener - let us sharpen our hearts, let them love more, discern more.  Spirits shall be the greater - what will you do? what will you do?  One wild and precious life. 

Threads of clouds are pink now, with bright orange underbellies beneath a sedge-grey roof.  The sun itself has vanished behind Rorschach spots of trees.  The hero died.  Courage shall be the greater, we battle on, though our strength grows less.  Here I am - send me. Though there's only a remembrance of a glow on the horizon now, by it I can see the whole world.  A dark world.  Yet how little a light can illuminate it.

...the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

- 1 John 2:8