Are We Truly Alone?

Are we truly alone?

Do we stand in the breach

Untouchable, irredeemable,

Each in his own prison,

Thinking of the key?

Where are the ones who fought with us,

Lived with us, died with us?

Vanished like ghosts in the morning sun,

This sun beating mercilessly upon us

As we stand by the side of the road.

There was a time when we longed to see the sun

To escape the shadows of night.

Now we flee from the sun,

Seek refuge in the shadows

Cast by the tall tall trees

Alone, with only our sweat

And grime and tears.

But no blood.

Our hands are dry of blood,

But still unclean from sweat and grime and tears.

They said it would be better without blood

But now they are gone,

With no blood to show that once they were here.

Where is our companion, our Comforter?

When we look up at the night sky

And contemplate the universe

Is there anything there to contemplate us?

We can scream into the shadows

And it’s good that we can,

But our screaming only echoes,

Never finding a home.

The sparrow finds a home

But we are not sparrows

We are only strangers

And sojourners in this our own land.

We carve our names on the surface of history

But we don’t belong there.

Others will carve their names,

Never knowing we were here first:

Finders keepers, losers weepers

In this valley of tears.

We Are Not Alone

We are not alone

The answer to the longings of our heart lies outside of us, 

beyond us, in the sphere of the supernatural.  

We are not our own fulfillment, 

and when we attempt to be,

 the consequences are devastating 

for us and for the world.  

We knew this once, but we have forgotten.

Deep within us, we know it still.

But how can we remember

If there is no one to help us,

To open our eyes

And point out the way?

The way leads down paths dark and dreary,

Under hanging trees and over raging seas.

The silence of truth is deadly,

But we must die all the same.

We have no other choice.

It is only through dying that we may be free.

Free of ourselves,

Free of the shackles that bind us to our own self-centre,

Our reflection in the monstrance

(a reflection only monstrous).

We look in the pool and see ourselves,

And we call it good

For a time.

But soon we are disappointed

For we cannot touch our reflection,

We may not possess ourselves.

There is set a limit on us,

A line we may not pass

For love of all the world.

The thing we love most cannot satisfy;

We are a chalice we may never drink

As long as we live.

As long as we live

We are incomplete.

If we worship ourselves,

We worship the finite,

And worship itself rebels

And recoils against such blasphemy.

We become the mystery that we are not

A void and vapid New God

In a void and vapid New Age.

We give ourselves freedom that we cannot give

Daring the deeds we should not dare

And deeding the dares we ought not deed.

We offer the same religious praise

Which once we had offered the infinite

Only we do not believe in the infinite

Only in ourselves.

But we cannot live without offering it

Nor can we die unless we do so.

And we wish to die,

Each in his prison wishes to die,

For we know that we must die

If we wish to escape the horrors.

We cannot escape the horrors

As long as we live.

We do not even have each other

For each is all alone

And each worships himself

In his dark and lonely chapel,

His chapel empty and still,

Not even the wind’s home,

Only his own.

He knows that the others are there

But wishes that they were not so,

Or that they were in a different way,

A way that were better for him.

Sometimes he forgets of them,

And is angry when they encounter him.

He cannot find it in his self-absorbed heart

To forgive them their virtues.

We repeat our empty words

Over . . .

. . . And over . . . 

 . . . And over . . .

. . . Again.

And we shall repeat our empty words

Tomorrow . . .

. . . And tomorrow . . . 

. . . And . . .

. . . Tomorrow