Three Poems while viewing the currents on the River Styx

Three Poems while viewing the currents on the River Styx.

Part of dealing with this walk is times of depression, particularly the depression that mocks faith - not blind faith or faith in some safety net, but faith in walking at all.  So three poems from such a time this last week:

Te Deum:

Te deum,

Te diddly dumdedum,
La luna, la leche,
La lucha:

I feel like God’s fresh meat
Laid out on the table.

The moon struggles
And nothing is itself

Except the song
Of Praise the the midst
of sorrow,
Kaddish,
Sung by small children
Skipping home
At dusk.

Here Gropes:
 
Here gropes the snarls
And wily grime
Around the slime
That wounded
dominions leave.
Slime that has no pity,
no good work,
nothing divine,
only a path
to the shadows
and lights out.


Death's dominion is just around the corner.

Everything I feel, now, 
becomes important.
Where before there were just complaints,
You know, mutterings of older life,
Now this ache, that scratch, a vague itch,
Even arousal, take on the portent
Of impending death.

It took fourteen seconds for me to lose it.
Gone the quiet grace of faith.

Then I was not the center of the universe,
Now I am.

Then there was confidence in the unfolding,
Now I am unfolding, and without confidence at all.
Then Death had no dominion.
Now Death has, perhaps, a new convert.

Mr. Death has pulled a fast one, yes?