I remember Night -
fallen so deep within me
like a veil of doom.
I was the darkness
and I knew only madness
and pride, sin, and gloom.
My heart knew nothing
niether did I knew my heart -
hardly did I see!
Till I came upon
words, muted in pages, thine!
But I heard thee not.
How could thy beauty,
thy wonder turn to ashes!
Something wept within...
Something wept within -
it cried out, it sought, it flew,
and never left me...
Time came, and God heard:
And so we are, you and I -
our past ceased to be.
Darkness left,
Morning came.
---<--@
Before I knew my Anne
(and consequently, the Holocaust),
I had a very idealistic view of warfare.
I thought armed conflict in and between nations
to be a very noble, honorable, even desirable affair.
I conceived soldiery to be something
clean and neat, ordered according to the image
of an effortless, mythical glory I had only imagined
and that the innocents were always
at all times and places - mercifully spared -
in their entirety.
After my Anne
(as it is God's pleasure),
I had a very decisive turn of heart.
Though by pure necessity
I accept the imperative of an absolute defense
(i.e. defense that is undertaken for its own sake),
I now utterly abhor War of any kind existing
in and between our nations.
For
I now see War as it is,
a hideous, devouring beast;
a fallen spirit, ever alive to our plight -
the enemy of All.
And soldiery
a dirty, confusing, difficult and painful necessity
born out of the Providential will of the LORD, our God,
to see all the nations of the children of Mankind
through to the end of all these tears.
And that we are all - to a certain degree,
within and among our nations engaged
in the art of true soldiering.
As I love my Anne, I hate War.
As I love Peace, I hate War.
Today is her birthday.
---<--@
