Occupo Dies Quod Capto Deus

Copyright 2009

The chattering box pours out the bad news
recession
depression?
stock market compression
relentlessly, day by day, like some insane preacher of doom
“the end is near”

as it has been since the dawn

We have ever lived on the brink of disaster,
this human family, this myriad, majestic, maddening tribe
living on an orb of rock and water
with a core of liquid fire
swirling through a vast, eternal night
a vacuum
airless, hopeless

Wobbling profoundly round a seething, roaring cauldron
of exquisite, unimaginable heat and light

Accompanied in space by ten thousand random stones the size of mountains
each able to wreak terminal devastation
should it come rumbling down to earth
ripping apart the air
heaving up the waters
with superheated energy which
traveling round the globe
wipes away the life
like so many bacteria
from a table top
until breath ceases
photosynthesis is extinguished
and the teaming planet
becomes as lifeless as dust.

And still but a tiny speck
in an insignificant solar system
looping around an ordinary star
in a vast but unremarkable galaxy
which races away into infinity
leaving its own kind
a wandering family of planets and stars
and black holes
fleeing into the beyond


While a few thousand light years away
a star threatens to go supernova
and spew gamma waves which travel
at the speed of light to earth
and kill every living thing.

And we fret about the decline in our savings

There come childhood remembrances of looking up at night
marveling at the light from the Milky Way
a view to the edge of the galaxy
as it spilled down the
the cobalt dome, pale and remote
now gone from our view

thank you smokestacks
gracias tree burners
danke automobiles

Man can die a thousand ways
life can be whisked away
like a wind blown leaf
its sweetness swallowed up in an instant
and everything loved or owned or hated or feared
is gone, evaporated like steam from a kettle
and those left behind to wonder
about the other side
whence did that essence depart?
the question indeed

And answers come slowly
come quickly
come seldom
come late
but they come

And the Word breathed Truth
with beauty and brilliance
and in the end
His children abide in
Halls of Light
where reign peace and joy
and resides that Balm in Gilead.