God At Ground
Zero
Prometheus Reclaiming his Gift
(poem/artwork from the stage play of the same title)
Beyond
the earth and sun
That day,
Beyond the still waning moon,
Beyond a relative peace of mind entwined
In summer’s festoon;
Beyond even a titan discipline
Lorded over land and sea,
Beyond the bold rebellions of galactic progeny;
Somewhere something had ignited,
First within the mind;
Power self-indicted leaves its virtue well defined.
A
spark sent out,
Consciously but not,
Inevitably found its tinder;
In universal consciousness All became the sender.
And All received the flame,
However cursed its grail,
And All entered the ring of fire – the serpent
Devouring
Its tail.
Bustling
days passed,
Years were made from hours;
Lives were long with pleasure and profit,
And God was touched by towers.
And
the flame waited ...
Its sphere of time unchanged by any measure;
From quiescence it drew its kindle
And made fate its buried treasure.
Then,
The Promethean Day:
Finally truth to be admitted;
the gaze of
One eye
Viewed billions of hands
Red with crimes committed.
Pandora’s
jar,
Long since spilled,
It too engulfed by flame,
Incinerated its only hope in hope of saving blame.
God’s
prescription – the Sun,
Afire for beneficial insolation;
Apollo even wept for his soul caught
In wicked conflagration.
Fear born out and fear besieged,
Echoes of warfare humming;
The opening salvo answered itself:
“Did you really not know what was coming?”
To near and distant shores it spreads,
The wildfire of Promethean rite;
Retribution meets its own sortie in ubiquity’s zeal
To fight.
In
this,
The civilian is the soldier,
And our homeland is the theatre,
And fire remains the punishing gift
Searching for a leader.
Terror
to tear asunder tests faith upon the rack;
A god could reclaim his gift of fire
But we cannot give it back.
So
courage we take in our bare hands,
As always has been done;
We give ourselves body and soul
To victory
Willed to be won.
Enemies
by envy
Who dragoon the world we share
Are no match for the American familiar to
the dare.
The
liberties we enjoy are thus the ones we give;
Creation of sweet enmity is part of how we live.
And so it must remain – compassion for the boot;
Beneath envy’s efflorescence is admiration at the root.
With
this we enter battle,
With talion to tear apart;
The baldric in supporting the sword holds firmly
To the heart.
Not even mythic deed,
Possesses quite the driving rapture of fired blood
Prepared to bleed.
Heaven
bares and bears its earthly presence
In occupation of righteous cause;
Truth’s cool, implicit justice determines mercy’s laws.
Corps
of angels advance
To lead the allied mortal,
To reconcile his civilian life with its stance
Before war’s portal.
And
as the angels possess us
And spirit us to our call,
Acutely we meet again
God’s drama within us all.
Even
evil was once an angel,
Hence, salvation’s way is coarse;
Endurance before prevailing
Orders valor to its source.
Every
man, woman, and child
Is born the hallowed hero
And rises to occasion as
God blesses from Ground Zero.
– Mary Jo Magar –