Sadness

The bomb crashing through the window and the sudden blast in the room. 

The long dry stretch of desert spreading down from the mountainside.

Sadness

The bloody child’s backpack half buried in blackened and shattered debris. 

Sadness

The shrieks of terror wandering around between the slabs of the shattered building 

looking for a way out into the daylight. 

Far above in the distance reaches of time, the stars stare down silently and impassively.

Sadness

Loosened from the bonds of earth, 

All those souls, at last freed from their pain, fear and grief, soaring upwards to their Home.

Shattered bodies, bones, blood pouring out. 

Sadness

 

Mothers sitting on a patch of cloth laid out on a hot dry desert,

Cradling their starving dying child.

Just a sack of bones, 

The life gone from their hollowed out eyes. 

Nobody cares. 

Still, the stars stare down impassively

At the tiny blue speck in the cold empty darkness of space.

Almost gone.

 

Wait, do you hear something? 

All that noise, all that violence, all that laughing, all that singing, all those explosions,

The wind sighing through the pines,

The busy roar of the surf on the beach, the song of the meadowlark on the fence.

Wait. Do you hear something?

The deathly stillness of the nuclear warhead on top of its column,

Waiting patiently for its time. 

Wait, do you hear something?

The laughing of carefree children racing around in their playground;

The shriek of the air around the fins of the missile racing towards its destination. 

Wait, do you hear something? 

All of that noise fading out as the blue orb fades away in the distance. 

 

Sadness

Does it all mean something?

The joy of two lovers walking on the beach,

Hatred all bottled up in the next howitzer shell about to drop into its tube,

The warmth and love overflowing out of a mother’s arms

into the small trusting infant cradled in bliss. 

The fear and hostility pouring forth from the demagogue's  pulpit.

The whale’s ping in the depths, 

The trillium pushing up through the snow,

The smoke, fire and poison pouring forth from the shattered refinery,

The unheard hiss of the snow blowing off the windswept peak into the abyss below.

 

Does it all mean something? 

Can you hear something?

Sadness

 

From above, the stars and galaxies continue their whirling dance,

From above, a vast Silence.

All around the Universe looks on and enfolds it all in Her everlasting embrace.