AT THE MEETING HOUSE
Souls as dry as autumn leaves,
The color long since out.
The organ plays.
The leaves crackle and rustle a little;
Then sink down.
Old ladies with gray moss on their chins,
Old men with camphor and cotton packed around their heads,
Thin child spirits, sharp and shrill as whistles.
Gray old trees;
Gaunt old woods;
Souls as dry as leaves
After autumn is past.
CHRISTIANS
Blind, they storm up from the pit.
You gave them the force,
You, when You poured the measure of agony into them.
Didn't You know what it would be,
Giving blind people fire?
Not gold and red and amber fire,
But marsh fire.
Fire of ice,
Suffering forged into suffering!
They are coming up now.
The sword is uplifted in the hands of the monster.
My valiant little puppets,
Did you think you could stand out against this?
Pierrot and Columbine breeding in the flowers….
There must be no flowers.