The huge, stumbling mass

careened down the road in a
deranged zig-zag
that bore no resemblance
to a planned direction.
They crashed into walls,
stunning those on the outside
of the seemingly eyeless flock and
splashed through muck-drenched
rivers, drowning the shorter ones.
All the while large numbers of them
shouted at each other
in rage, neck veins bulging,
teeth bared,
muscles tense and at the ready,
roaring out their opinions
about where they were
and where they should go next.
And the great mass moved on
toward the twilight,
most of its stumbling,
weary members
just trying
to keep up
as best they could.

I was an alien there,

a stranger in that chill, tired place.
It was as if the half century
spent there
had been a hallucinatory dream,
a vaguely remembered vision,
a series of black and white pictures
from an album lying dormant
in an airless attic.
I walked familiar halls and felt
no nostalgia,
only relief
that they were no longer
my day to day reality.
I reveled in the company
of those I knew and loved,
but I could no longer
be with them;
my true home insisted
on my presence,
and I was overjoyed
to obey its green, flowering
command.

I'll Be Away for a Week

Back at it on Wednesday, 21 May.

(Not that anyone will notice.)

I will venture back

to Flatland
(if only for awhile)
to see if it's recovered
from its winter
battering,
and to let my story
intersect
(if only briefly)
with those who
are still real in
my heart and mind
(if only sometimes
in distant memory).
It is now the
Temporary Destination;
I have escaped its
exhausted gravity,
and when I return
to the Garden,
it will be a homecoming
made more blessed
by the reminder
of what I have left
(if not who).

We shield their eyes

from the death camp images
and we erect as many walls
as we have mortar for
to keep the shapeless evil
of the lurking, unknown
others
away from them.
And if we're the people
we say we are,
we shield them from us.
We put our own hurt
and own fear
to one side, and we try not
to let them know about
the things that would make us
choke with shame
were they ever
to be revealed.
We want that nice, glossy picture
in the living room
to be their image of us,
no matter how much of a lie
it really is.
And they would be frightened
and confused
if they knew how fiercely
we pray for them
(even if we think our words
merely drift into an uncaring night),
or to hear us make a desperate offer
while lying in sleeplessness
(as if we were in any position to bargain!):
Lord,
if there is any suffering you demand of
us, put it on me.
And if you need to take someone
from our family,
please let it be me.
Their time for understanding
is not yet;
their epiphany
is still being constructed.

At first the line was flat

as the laughable little superapes
flailed at each other with long-haired
fists and sharp finger nails.
It budged upward a little when
they learned what a rock can do
to a man's head.
It was jolted when what was
once used to bring down a deer
was now used to tear through
a leather covered chest.
But muscle power bound the line's
rise, and even the gladius's
colorful career was
simply an elaboration
on a hoary theme.
The night labor of the
alchemists began the line's
ominous ascent.
Soon the missiles
became noisier and nastier,
and then, after the machines
began their deafening reign,
the conical demons became
monstrous in their
demented rage.
And when the man
with the ever-present pipe
became Death, the Destroyer
of the World,
the line shot straight upward.
The moment had finally arrived--
our greatest accomplishment
was finally
in reach,
and that which we are truly
best at
was about to receive its
well-deserved
apotheosis.

It is the moment that exists

at the cusp of forever,
in the microseconds just before
the act that can never be undone or
the words that can never be unsaid.
It is the moment
when a single kiss
may change the future
of humanity,
a single turning away
may seal the crypt of a heart,
when a hand is slowly
forming a taut fist,
or when the phrase,
"Go ahead, they'll never
miss it"
is being weighed.
Universes
hold their breaths
at these
pinpoints.