all things

Cannot function
Alert: low ion-refusal
Jettison excess cargo immediately
Tolerance level will exceed maximum capacity
In three minutes.
Thrusters off. Prepare for launch codes, received,
In 5...4...3...2...1...
Liftoff of the space shuttle Atlantis
Boldly going where no man has gone before.
Leaking hyperspace,little dark wells of blackest night,
Seeping into a dying soul
savoring its last words
saving the best for last
In 3..2..1...
Has exploded, prepare for impact
3...2...1...
Tragic end, here in the foreground,
Where the more things change,
The more they remain the same.

It falls all around me
Eviscera
tatters and ribbons
scaly shards of past, incalculable
and chaotic of such twisted pattern
yet pattern, nevertheless.

Hewn from all angles
ideals on the chopping block
Hacksawn and chewed
a massacre
a mordred on the loose
a spun web turned noose
fractaled pattern, spun fine

The storm sheds torrents more
Eviscera
And weak wear thin to bone
Shed tears so thick and moan
Why humanity rips into itself
wild dog-like?
images against the ebony slick walls
of a dungeon so departed
that the real is sickly left mused
not lived

Dear Lord,

There are times, like today, when my heart just simply yearns. It yearns after no conscious thing. I try to think of all the things I may want, and there is no material response. I am in limbo, as if I am waiting for the greatest thing that could ever happen to me.

It happens often on the days where I feel the most anxiety, and I feel there must be some relation. Perhaps there is a very real relationship there, between the anxiety of my real world relationships and the status of my heart's relationship with its deepest desire. It makes sense, but the limitations of my reason will not allow me to proclaim this for sure.

I do get the sense that many of the things I have in my heart die each day. Family and friends do not die every day, but they will in time, as will I. Passing fancies, victories, accomplishments, even the things that come from you, they all pass on in my heart. My anxiety comes from having these things in a continual state of passing on as through a sieve and never feeling full enough to be satisfied.

I have heard that my heart will not be still until it rests in you, O Lord. My heart's rest comes not in merely being filled, but in overflowing! And once these blessings have spilled out onto my world, my heart will sincerely seek to rest suspended within your gifts of joy and peace and comfort. It does not seem that this stillness lies within the world I now inhabit, but in time, perhaps, I will be able to sense it and know You are there and that my heart gently rests in Your hands.

I make a simple prayer of thanks for the many blessings I have been given, of praise for your Beneficence, and lastly, I ask for peace, that though I often doubt my place and my worth, I remember that You knew what I was capable of when you wrought me.

In Your Name I pray,

Amen.

Reading: W.B. Yeats - Selected Poems, John S. Dunne - Love's Mind
Thinking: Always more to do, more to learn.
Hoping: This time I mean it

Another hour in another day
Passed by without consequence
Another life walks another way
Passed on without significance
Empty eyes and ubiquitous dismay
Souls bereft of magnificence
Stillness in longing for May
When spring has sprung with diligence
With winter's anchor aweigh
Death seems to have permanence
But I don't fear this day
No fear of insignificance
I only fear that I won't wait
For love to pay its severance

You think as you sit on your high mountaintop. The view from here is unique.

Looking to the left, you see what has been. To your right, what will be.

Civilizations come and go. Births and deaths of species. Of planets.

You sit here and think: what cursed privilege.

The Watcher.

Never to interact. Never to intercede. You know the future. You know where it all comes from.

Where it is going.

You see that birth is death... that love is strife... that order is chaos.

You think these things to yourself as the landscape changes. It's a terrible and wondrous play. All the creatures performing earnestly. The world stage trembles beneath the hordes and masses, but does not falter. Not, at least, for some time.

You fall in love with some. The truly earnest. The truly good. Those you fall for. You see their brief wink in time as a nova. They spawn new life and new ideals in their wake. (Nova is truly an apt name for these stars.)

Some others interest you too, like the one's who earn asylum. Intriguing, that they too have a similar role to your own. Except that their mountaintops reside in worlds of fancy, of mysticism, and of dread. They should not speak of their world, and yet they do. The picture they paint earns them asylum, briefly, until death.

Considering the extremely small amount of space this particular universe fits into, it's no wonder its creatures require of its inhabitants to share a similar worldview. Humans, generally, seem to be interested in the expansion of this worldview. However, the humans are also so desperately tied to their past that they do not recognize the thoughts that could propel their civilizations by hundreds of years. These individuals, though brilliant, are given asylum on account of their strangeness.

And the novas, which work earnestly to tie together the past and the future, are hardly given their due unless they are able to appeal immediately to the emotions of the present population. Even then, through no fault of the nova, the public majority will shun these efforts, either too dull to understand or too jealous to acknowledge the significance the nova's life has offered.

So you watch. You realize why people weep at loss. They do not have the view that you do, that in their time, for every loss, there is a gain. There is no true emptiness... not for a long time. These people should be in joy. They do no know what comes next.

Joy. You think on this for a moment longer. Joy is not a characteristic of your own. It cannot be. Joy is a characteristic only of those with limited perspective. Joy should be common. Perhaps humans deserve more credit.

But you ponder again: No. These creatures should be joyful. They will never have to suffer the Loss. What joy you would experience were you not so intimate with the end of things. They pretend that they know... but they do not know beyond the moment's horizon.

You want to intervene, but cannot. You are the Watcher. Your role is to foresee and to record. But have you not seen enough, with all time laid out for you? Have you not witnessed the Birth and Death countless times? The Gain and Loss of all things?

You want to intervene, if naught but to say this:

"Child of Life, be Merry!
For your time is one of Bliss
You have but a short time
To enjoy all that is Good
Nay, all that simply Is!
You do not know
That Before, there is Nothing
And After, it is as Before
There is simply Now, and Now
Is where there is Joy.
You are not the Watcher.
You are the Doer.
Do what is good and
Do what will linger on
After you have Gone.
I plead, for this One's sake,
Enjoy these Things."

This is what the Watcher would say.

But the Watcher will not intervene.

Just stay for a little while
You silent child
You silent fire
You silent flower
In your silent tower
You sigh
You sigh
You sighed a full hour
Your silent eye
Your sword
You say you're here
You say we're safe
You say you're near
You're safe from death
You saved your soul
You said I'd be safe here
In this tower with you
It's on fire
It's on fire
And there's no escape
No escape from the fire
No safety here
You said to stay with you
Just another hour
It's too far you said
Now we're on fire
We're on fire
I'm on fire with you
You silent flower
You silent child
I'm on fire with you
You said you'd save me
You said you'd save my soul
And now there's nothing left
Just the fire
Just our silent fire