Month: November 2023

First Snow

And so, the summer sighs and turns away,

its once green leaves alight in bright farewell.

One final fire before their dull decay.

One final wave before they curled and fell.

The time has come for frost, for geese in flight;

their lonely shouts and silent, throbbing wings.

Dark, crooked branches etch the brooding night.

A quiet withering of summer things.

Meadows sway and bow and fade to white;

A silvering of every blade and flower.

Edged by the piercing gleam of warmthless light,

a frozen kiss to mark their final hour.

Pond’s trilling chorus stills, to silence yields.

Forsaken gardens and forgotten vines.

Night winds moaning over empty fields;

Each stem, a hollowed bone of gentler times.

All melt into the sober, aching earth.

All fall before the stony rule of snow.

The end we saw afar even from birth

must come and every mortal thing must go.

Thoughts about October 7

You couldn’t bear to watch, and it would be dangerous to try. Some things are better left unseen. To know them might be the end of you.

And so, we do not watch. We avoid pictures of the raped, murdered, burned, and beheaded because no sane person can bear to see such things.

This is the nature of cruelty. It transcends debate. It sickens and stains the witness. It screams what we can hardly bear to remember: That evil is real. That evil is among us.

The rancid stench of evil cannot be disguised, and so it is hidden by those who have developed a taste for it and evaded by those who have not. Cruelty creates a strange partnership between the sane, who cannot bear to see, and the cruel, who do not want to be seen. Those who would expose heinous evil have two enemies and no allies. No one wants it known.

The cover-up of evil is also evil, and that evil is among us. We stand aside as Americans tear down photos of hostage Jews and blame the victims for their own mutilation.

This feels like a kick in the gut because our guts, though less discerning than our minds, are less easily fooled. America, which did much to end the holocaust, now does much to excuse it.

This did not happen suddenly. For years, we stood aside as abortion supporters tore down photos of severed children, falsified their suffering, and blamed them for their own mutilation. America, which claimed all men are created equal, now assumes we are created with no value at all.

It’s the pictures that prove it – our disgust at the cruelty of evil, our readiness to let others hide what we cannot bear to see. But we have seen, and we know, and to let these cruelties stand would be the end of us.