|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
AFTERMATH I wanted to slap the preachers prattling, not uniting, blaming God for a madman’s evil, pointing pudgy fingers at Liberals, Feminists, Interior Decorators, ACLU, People for the American Way. Might as well, I said, believe God is giving us excuses to capture a source of cheap oil without drilling the wilderness. Might as well, I said, believe God is demanding we avenge women enslaved and abused by the Taliwhackers. Too bad, I raved, we can’t rescue the women, free the children, telecommute a Fat Man into downtown Insanestan. Next morning, women and children were packing into Pakistan, but men forbidden to cross the border. Revelation! Maybe it makes sense now. Maybe God is about to answer the secret prayers of veiled women. By Patsy Anne Bickerstaff Christmas Bells (Upon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) I heard the bells on Christmas day, At Ground Zero in New York, in the Potomac lapping Virginia shores, Their old, familiar carols play To a Guatemalan orphan, a Kosovar widow, And wild and sweet] As a prayer for liberty in a Rwandan slave-child’s eyes, or muffled in a burqa, The words repeat Like monks chanting in Taiwan, China, Tibet, Of peace on earth In deserts and rainforests, city streets and alleys in the projects, good will to men Struggling to know their God, their children, their brothers, themselves. And in despair I bowed my hear, Wept for little girls in Thailand and Ethiopia, little boys in Pakistan. “There is no peace on earth,” I said, Only oppression in Cuba, druglords in Colombia, starvation in Chechnya, For hate is strong, Greed, addic6ion and fear still stronger; the evildoer ridicules God, And mocks the song, Faint, wispy, forlorn, Of peace on earth, Even earth blessed by footsteps of the Prince of Peace, Good will to men For whom the spirits of Sarah and Hagar grieve. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep Than a Belfast piper, A Dublin tenor. God is not dead; nor does He sleep, But smiles from eyes of a Santa, mourning his sailor son, but bringing joy to the ill and poor, The wrong shall fail At the hands of quilters, making gifts from memories; of children dropping coins in red kettles, The right prevail, In arms of mothers and foster mothers, sharing embraces; ordinary men sharing life’s blood With peace on earth, And in the sky, where old enemies become new friends, in their man-made stars, Good will to men And to women, and children, whose dear faces shine with the hope and promise and beauty Of the precious Baby Whose birth we celebrate. By Patsy Anne Bickerstaff |
|
||