hot light warms my hair and casts a halo glow on my crown,
dazzles my shaded eyes searching for light
through the winking gaps of vines grasping
the sky, which grasps nothing, but holds
everything underneath its blanket of wonder,
shelters the sinners and saints and sovereigns all the same,
brightly beams at me, and you, and the young boy in Boston
who bombed the marathon runners, mothers and fathers
and babies all trying to make sense of a race to nowhere,
a sprint that loops us 'round to the same ruminations:
Why pain? Why struggle?
Why hate, harm? What need for hope?
Why blood and blasted limbs, why a bastard child
of humanity to turn us, again, against each other?
Because we fear to see that his scars
are ours, on our own bodies and souls -
ours, because we all have assaulted one another with lack of love.
The threat of walking into a crowd of strangers
is less than the death that comes of never being known.
The threat to humankind that comes of crucifying a Chechen
in the name of public safety and justice
is greater than the risk of calling him our son,
cradling him in care, gently stroking his hair in sunlight,
holding him with branch arms that bring his
brightness to blossom, allow us to glimpse
his glory under gory wounds, and offer him up
into the expansive sky-love
that will rain down refreshment of forgiveness,
will remind us that no one is simply a spectator,
that "Victim" names each and every forgotten child.
.
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