A Dream for Our Time

Souls reluctantly depart
old ways' wounds,
sudden grief shrouded by 
smokey veils unending 
signaling terror,
leave in their sorrowful leaving
a child

destined to bring
to the world something
new salvation

the child grew
strong beautiful
apparently blessed by
earth and heaven

to be desired by
all but touched by none
male in his might
female in her compassion
virginal feared
yet never loved

from a distance kept
safe secure 
to grow by virtue 
of isolation wondrously becoming 
Lord over the world yet
not of the world

known by many names:
Fortress America
World's Strongest Economy
Beacon of Freedom
The Superpower
God Shed His Grace on Thee

and cradled the people
happy free
inside monuments to
Capital and Defense
until one day in

terror heroic confusion 
the mighty twins
collapsed illusions
clearing space to view
vulnerability insecurity
in the reality of the world
and the young one died
in the rubble.

This innocent lost,
birth in our time emerges 
as from a dream uncertainly 
from smoke of ascending souls
from a fiery second coming
its adult destiny perhaps
to see through tears of smarting eyes
that fortress walls have fallen
and only simple humans stand
unencumbered by certain 
visions of good and evil
to bring the world something
new salvation.  


September, 2001