Toward Light

It's a scary thing, Esme.  Isn't it?  To be faced with this.  To be faced with something so vast and without precedent.  Something that hasn't happened in this particular way before.  This kind of vulnerability feels both searingly intimate and horribly impersonal.  It's truly the last thing I ever wanted, sweet one.  Please believe me.  I've dreaded days like these my entire life.  Here we are, nonetheless.  It enrages me.  It saddens me so.  These wicked ways of the world.

   I know you worry, Esme.  For the weak and wounded.  For our elders, our children.  I share those worries.  Real fear in the eyes of those we love is always heart-breaking, far more than our own fears and challenges.  It's a natural, beautiful desire; to soothe those closest to us.  When we can't provide that healing balm we suddenly feel so powerless.

   It's hard to be a poet in times like these, my darling.  It's even harder to be an angel.  A thing of second sight and ragged wing.  The modern world has no real place for us.  I know you understand.  I'm not interested in accusations, in glib dismissals or hollow platitudes.  Because this will change the quality and tenor of many lives in days to come.  But I am interested in truth.  The spiritual is so hard to discuss when the literal is at the forefront of so many minds right now.  Those brutal realities.  Those hideous inequalities.  Suffering, sickness, uncertainty.

   I'm angry, Esme.

   I'm so very angry, and I won't pretend I'm not.

   Part of me – the very tired, very perishable part of me – wonders if tales of augurs and angels might ring utterly hollow during times like these.  Perhaps silence is preferable.  But that would be like turning my back on my own spirit.  Poems and tales are all the truth that is left of us now, in this so-called modern world.  Kasi was more than mere cadence and rhythm, once upon a time.  King of so much more than a desolate hill of ashes.  But I know deep down that thinking like this won't help me, or anyone.  So I try to bravely face the depth of my sadness hiding behind the anger.  Beloved, I never wanted any of this.  Not for Father's holy children.  Glorious humanity.  Kara’s kin.  Those beautiful artists, healers and engineers who shone so brightly before the Fall.  So I tell myself it's always time for stories.  Especially if they're magical, meaningful, and true.

   And I try to have faith.

   Crisis, trauma. This wounding of mind and body that we're experiencing right now, this collective uncertainty – I have to believe this is in fact the perfect time for tales of augurs and angels.  Otherwise, what use am I at such distance?  What use is anyone, unless they can lay healing hands upon those who suffer?

   I wish Kashi still had greater magics than these.  Tangible magics, like the skilled dreamers of the old city.

   Thought and shape and making, steering homes and harbours.

   Once upon, but not anymore.

   I think we really need it, Esme.  That soothing balm.  That restorative faith to quicken our steps.  One, two, three.  Because it's an ugly, fracturing thing when an angel loses his faith. Cities can burn, and fold.  Bleeding shoulders seeping images torn from dream, still flexing the place where such wings would fold at my back.  But you gave me faith again, my love.  You really did.  Kisses and kindness, flirtation and play.  Deep, abiding friendship – by every name I called you.  But more than all that, you gave me maturity.  Work.  Consideration.  You gave me real art…and then you gave it to those who needed it most.  The voiceless, the desperate and dispossessed.  You gave them depth.  Song and strength enough for healing.  Alone, and together.  A quiet place within your offerings, where faith is a little easier to find.  Especially during these difficult times.  I shall always be indebted to you for that.  So hold on to me, Esme.  Together we'll try to comfort all our people.  We'll embrace them however we can as we pass through this darkness.  In love, and faith, toward light.