Quaking at The Sight
written by: Jenny Morelli
@JennyMo31725980
Night
closes in, the sky
grows dark, a silent witness
to our standoff, enemy against enemy,
stuck in snow-drenched trenches with mud
with dirt with worms, bracing for imminent death
by starvation, by sleep-deprivation, by ambush
or insanity.
We hit what we see. We share
an indifferent hatred.
We are savages
until a silence pierces the night, then
a haunting human humming.
Familiar notes
in foreign tongue floating
floating toward us in the settling smoke.
To my left,
to my right, all is calm, all is bright-
-eyed terrified wonder. We’re mesmerized, entranced
confused and suspicious. I rise, slow-
motion…head neck
shoulders torso, a confrontation,
an invitation for death
to take me
so that I’ll die
hearing the elixir of life,
sweet music instead of munitions
and without warning, I’m transported
through space and time.
Am I dead? Am I
an angel
floating across the bloody
muddy frost-crunchy field? How else to know
if my delusion is just illusion?
My killers’ faces are close
so close, and I reach out in a virtual-reality
brain-body disconnect. Far away, we were enemies,
monsters, pawns, but up close, we are one.
Mirror images. Helmets. Uniforms.
Hands eyes fears…
humanity.
His lips are moving, voice soft, and soon,
mine are too, then others join us
in the silent night
nocturnal notes reverberating
melodious, harmonious, across a wounded battlefield
Soft-sung words of angels, of souls still living
and those already gone, smoke-
swirling around us
inside us
…sleep in heavenly peace…
Glories stream from high above swaying singing
sonorous; familiar Christmas spirits
imploring a truce a surrender
a single white flag.
But somewhere
a clock strikes midnight.
A cannon fires. We scatter
and scurry to our trenches. Raise
our weapons. Resume our war, no longer calm
in the radiant beams of missile-
blast bright.
Love’s pure light is snuffed out, but for just
one moment there was a dawn
in the middle
of the darkest night,
a dawn of redeeming grace.
We were tender. We were mild. But then
reality returned and quaked
at the sight.
- Spotlight On Writers – Jenny Morelli - September 21, 2024
- Back to the Blur - August 16, 2024
- Words Matter - May 4, 2024
