Death is on our collective mind at the moment, and not just the death of Osama bin Laden. His death seems to have stirred up again the grief and anger that we’ve suffered as a people over the last ten years – anger and grief stemming from the loss of life on 9/11, and in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hope that the loved ones of victims find the peace they’re seeking, but I’m also reminded how grateful I am that death won’t have the last word in the universe. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” thanks be to God.
You Whose Name
You whose name is aggressor and devourer.
Putrid and sultry, in fermentation.
You mash into pulp sages and prophets,
Criminals and heroes, indifferently.
My vocativus is useless.
You do not hear me, though I address you,
Yet I want to speak, for I am against you.
So what if you gulp me, I am not yours.
You overcome me with exhaustion and fever.
You blur my thought, which protests,
You roll over me, dull unconscious power.
The one who will overcome you is swift, armed:
Mind, spirit, maker, renewer.
He jousts with you in depths and on high,
Equestrian, winged, lofty, silver-scaled.
I have served him in the investiture of forms.
It’s not my concern what he will do with me.A retinue advances in the sunlight by the lakes.
From white villages Easter bells resound.
Strange Figures 