Friday, April 10, 2009

Good Friday, 2009: Riding Westward


In 1613, the immortal John Donne penned this famous work. Today, 396 years later, while accepting my unfortunate limitations as a sub-par poet, I am inspired to answer:


“Let man’s Soul be a Sphere”—a proclamation
That fuels our quest across Creation
Always hoping, with any luck, to find
The origin of God, or the Heavenly Mind
But Society’s motion exerts its force
And all too often we are blown off course
We pick up the fragments to start anew
For what more, we ask, could we hope to do?
But as we grow old, our eyes grow dim
With faltering heart and weakening limb
Lost and circling, deaf and dumb
Simple ants being crushed by opposing Thumbs
Or so we think, in our cynical Hearts
Depressed bodies, broken parts
But Hope exists if we should but look
Up to the Sky, into the Book
So it is, on Good Friday, that I ride
Through the dark hills and green valleys wide
I raise up my head to the fast-clouding sky
What a death were it then, to see God die?
What Thinkers before me have wondered the same?
What countless Others have shared my aim?
My young horse beneath me does shudder and prance
Partaking in youth, and the joyful spring-dance
Perhaps I should join her—with wings we could soar
‘Cross the bright heavens. Could one ever want more?
What is Eternity? The Mystery deep
Does cloud our Conscience, corrupt our Sleep
The Unknown is brutal; our Hearts are shy
We fear the unknowable question: Why?
But why do we always have to know?
Perhaps the time has come to let go
Life is good; God is great—if these things be true
Then they are enough, and no more can we do
God willing, my time on Earth is yet long
This is but the prelude to my worldly Song
The Aria of youth; adolescent Crescendo
Vitality’s Symphony picking up tempo
Every Soul; every Sphere has a place in this Choir
From the birth of the World, ‘til the perishing Fire
Soft! Little horse, let us ride through the day
While the Sun is still high; ‘fore our lives fade away


Well, I may not be Donne, but I am done, so everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

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