Rescue from the Unspeakable

What to do in the face
Of the unspeakable?

How to go forward
When a child
Is violated
A girl
Is murdered
An old man,
Stricken with cancer,
Is robbed at gunpoint?

How frivolous
Free verse can seem
On a brittle planet
Riven with hatred --

How precious our prayers
When, somewhere
In an ocean of
Scrub and sand,

A family of seven
Is hunted for sport.

And yet:
Our feet emit photons.
The crowns of our heads
Spout the light of our souls.

Which is to say,
We have power
We cannot begin to imagine,
Even as, each day,
We silently invoke it.

And with each act --
Of prayer,
Kindness,
Patience,
Perisistence --

We move
Toward
A great reunion.

The bitter earth softens.

Somewhere,
A killer dreams
Of his mother's embrace,
And is moved
To give a keepsake
To a widow;

And somewhere else,
A despot is enlightened
By the taste
Of a milkshake.

Impossible?

In the great net of being
One soul's small quiver
Can free a being
On the other end.

Never forget it.

--Mr. Gobley