Good Neighbors: 6: Saturday

I scream from the pit,

I roar from within the fires of Hell;
when will I be free?

I have killed for my government,
the horrors of my record are known;
during wartime, my skills were needed,
but I am now a discarded “hero.”

My peacetime is an internal war;
I am a danger to myself.

I wait for relief,
I wait for a changing of the guard,
for an eternal watchman to cometh,
and relieve me of my duty.

Really, I want my memory
to be wiped clean;
I want to let it go.

I wait to be redeemed
for a new beginning.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 130, and could be subtitled, “The Veteran”

Meditations in Fast Times: 10. Down in the dark

                10.

Down in the dark,
down in the dark,
in the dark we have been.

More than watchmen wait for the dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light.

In the morning of the world,
the everlasting Light breaks over us
the light purifies all rivers and oceans,
the light shakes the desert sands,
the light twists the cedars,
and its fire strips the forests bare.

More than watchmen wait for dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light,
so the darkness shall be dark no more,
and the stillness shall dance,
for the Light shall be felt so deeply,
—for Light shall surely purify!—
that we shall be children in the Light,
and shall be Light while we last,
while Light lasts.

This is intersection of timeless moment;
It is here that our time and all time is redeemed.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen