Obedient To The Time

l We know all about those lost ages dogging a time of glory, when darkness descends suddenly like a winter twilight over a pale landscape, and we witness even the heartiest hope can manage only two last breaths and then is stilled. And so we become reluctant carriers of both grief and darkness. We try to escape but find the way blocked by other griefs and deeper darkness... We must be obedient to the time into which we are thrust, with no regard for our readiness or willingness. What great-souled ancestors can be our models? Who among us will recognize the glimmer of radiance before it fades forever from view? What prophetic voice is left to galvanize our remaining vigor? I fear the god of this world is abandoning his creation. He has been glimpsed walking awkwardly down the corridors of spent time, muttering, HAD I KNOWN THIS THEN, THERE WOULD BE NO NOW. He cradles a new-born lamb in his folded arms, as he crosses the threshold of the world. One person, perhaps reliable, swears she saw him turn and look over his shoulder, and the twist his whole frame, and look long and hard into the world he was leaving. II I feel life slipping out of me, as the god withdraws his sustaining strength. Is this the sway of a new NIHIL overtaking my mind? But my Will asserts itself against the very thought of an exhausted creation. I cannot assess my present condition. It's as if I stood in the eye of a storm, calm and unafraid, as clouds of fiery energy circle around and over me. Or is that just a projection, my mind is stunned by the absence of our departed god? It might be a Lucid Dream of vast proportions from which I shall awake a new man, almost a man ready to play the role of a god. Perhaps this is the moment of the Phoenix, whose mantle I will assume. The fire subsides. I see people like myself, scattered across the scorched landscape. Like me, they seem ready and capable... From the few remaining charred trees, a flock of orange birds are singing brightly.