Against the Darkness

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

A Poem by Royal Rhodes

When will our days of suffering come to an end?
We questioned the sky, grown silent and covered by clouds,
when the weapons of terror had dropped from the terrible hands
of the gods that we made in the war of all against all.
As the faces of children stared at us out of the flames,
we saw their sweet flesh and their names that were burning like paper.
In place of such darkness, repeated again and again,
we said we invented new light and followed new freedom.
Reason was set, a mechanical, clockmaker thing,
and the body of earth was divided, its spirit and heart
made into things we could purchase and sell in a market.
But when will the days of our suffering come to an end?
And dreaming the dreams of the past, in the voices of prophets,
Oracles saw us as blind as Tiresias was.
They told us to look into the fire, the heavens, and heart.
Under the shadows we made was sensuous reason,
glowing with anger and outrage, frustration and loss,
but ready to craft the marvels of art and of science,
to build from a milltown, Olympus, a city of friends.
It is written that "Truth that is great contains greater silence."
With such truth we make beauty whenever we dare to touch pain,
when the voice we create to speak to God is justice.
Such dreams are not seen in our sleep but when fully awake,
when we rise to the place we can dance in the circle of stars,
and like diamonds from dust, we will never return to the ashes.
They spoke this great truth; but will anyone listen and act?
Will we rage against darkness and seize the Promethean fire?
Will any remain who can hear this great challenge: Sin boldly?
And when will this life of our suffering come to an end?

Light descends from light, and all I feel is love.

Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught courses on the history of

Christianity for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in journals in the U.S.,

the U.K., and Canada. He lives now in a small village in the heart of Ohio.