I am under the shadow of death.

The shadow my friend has cast

by his own death too soon visited

upon him by no sense of life I know.

The young always die too young.

“To what purpose?” the words 

razor sharp to cut across time

and eternity, to hear some truth

in the lie, “The child is hers!”

I hear nothing.  Feel no new wound

arise across my heart.  “Accept 

the unacceptable.”  The first divine 

commandment ever exemplified.

The second, like the first, as full

of mystery and confusion, “Love

the life you’re given.”

I think of the insanity of Abraham,

the sacrifice ready to be made,

the ram caught in the briars

and cannot make the connection.

I look out at the morning beauty 

of frost and sunrise,

love and loss,

eternity spinning 

the thin strands of time,

the life caught by them.

How the wind or a hand

brushes them aside.

I am not satisfied with the answers

I am given.  Remembering – the consolation

of the living.