Why is the creation
not a story of tears
birth is pain
creation grief
the made is always unmade
the end waits
baleful and patient

There are two eternities of darkness...

The before
Before conquerors enwombed their seeds
shaped like the tears of women
and un-entombed lay the gray
detritus of the fallen
before ancestors were driven
from hearth stumbling
falling on cold roads alone
before empires burned language
onto the tongues of slaves
before iron and bronze
and the moans on the battlefields
of the abandoned
a gangrenous sound
ended only by scavenger’s tooth
or simply cold time

The after
After children's children's children
no longer laughed
at their children’s sweet smiles
after slaves became masters
and even their new language
passed from the memories of mountains
now diminished and gone
after metal ripped from ***** lands
became highways that brought news of tragedies
no-one heard
except those whose hearts were branded
by the heat of the suffering

So this ‘tween light is blinked and short
with all details silhouetted
with all meaning muted
with all comfort from kin or kingdom covered
by the darkness before power
by the darkness after glory
by the darkness forever