(x = space)

x

x

Night Is Gracious

x

I can’t think of what

I deserve

Because I deserve nothing

Too well I understand

(with Protestants)

The wages of sin,

Not

Because I’m criminal but

Because I’m sinful,

Maybe in the way

Of all who’ve sinned and so

Deserve extinction

x

But sinful state and actions

Might be

A prelude unto grace—and so

Some say there must

Be evil on the way,

And I wonder

x

They don’t really go by halves,

And shadows are not evil

Evil isn’t natural

Though insistent

And when we think

The evil life is

Shadow life—they don’t combine,

Not really

Decide what you will

x

Let evil sublimate for now

But shadows can delight

At night

Or teaching about night

In day

x

In daylight we’ll have Parousia,

I suppose

Thought at night perhaps

We’ll celebrate,

Then rest

The rest we should have had

In Eden,

Now a rest

For all to merge

To bathe of goodness,

Leaving all distinct

Forever

x

Each one a player and a part

(not the player without

an upstart part,

as Jaques laments

an irony of stasis)

In everything revealed

By light, by shade

All shades of existence

x

Under the sun

(evil abrogated)

While always under stars

Belonging to night,

Where we also

Always

All belong

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

Wisconsin State Fair Park Exposition Center, West Allis, United States

Taken from the Sky Lift at the WI State Fair, August 2017

x