Michael Bolerjack Love and Death

Table of Contents

The Eve Nowhere He Would Rather Be Others Stand Aim High Without Concept Our Sin, His Mercy And Yet

The Eve A maiden in black, she listened, and never looked away, staying for his ending, for the end of the night, the closure she sought and found. He called her by anothers name before us all, as her eyes rested on his bowed head, lingering in the darkness, while witches stirred cauldrons, and saints made sinners ready for the feast.

Nowhere He Would Rather Be There is nowhere he would rather be than with her now, a book in her lap, a pencil in her hand, with eyes as black as her heart. It was with her that he knew, though they would never love, though she would take his life, if only he would ask, that she was the last, best chance to bring him flowers of evil and flowers of romance, refusal and reprisal, and God-forsakenness.

Others Stand Where they once stood, others stand and sing of things unknown to man, the laid lines, the worded weight, the gentleness of love, and the fear of men done up in battle for array. A little scarred, and no longer scared, they remember a lost and lonely love, but do not call his name, asking only: If we languish in anothers arms, or fear reprisal, the moment men take others, younger, to themselves, and abandon tender truths, will you be waiting patiently, singing silent songs, turning pages of the last heartbreak?

Aim High There was little left to say. Once they thought of love. Then they thought of harm. No one knew the truth. They guessed at each other like harpoonists on the sea, the whale in sight and bearing hard upon them, while they took steady aim and threw.

Without Concept It was inconceivable, the way we committed the act of betrayal, and yet kept faith at a great distance, the truth of faith, and believed, not in ourselves or what we did or tried to do, or wanted, but the way God brought good out of evil, out of our heartless desire and cruel pride.

Our Sin, His Mercy The sin belonged to all, antithetic, destructive, in the time of absolutes. It was his mercy. We do not doubt who orchestrated our blind maneuvers, the darkness of the demise. Annihilation sought, impossibility framed, abysses for one and all, God made it possible. But the end was really only a beginning and the wake a restoration, a restoration of love never known, now found and learned, both because of and despite the assassination.

And Yet And yet, if we do not say that there is one not to be betrayed, and in a way, we have loved only ourselves and no one else, and in a way, it was our philosophies that taught us to fear, that in a way, our own actions caused them to shun us, then we will have learned nothing, and too sure of salvation, lose it in a bragging pride, graceless, without hope. Perhaps these things were better left unsaid. To say we wronged each other is beside the point. For a day we thought we knew the truth about them, when really their words applied to everyone, after our betrayal. We

wanted to love them, but they would not, and we wander behind, knowing nothing but possibility. We have much to learn, even now, about love and about truth. In confessing blindness, will they too be blessed? If blessings come, and they receive, will they still turn? Will they know the one who is? As promised, the meaning is realized in the breaking and in fragmentary poetic utterance, pieces of artlessness, shaping little deaths, helping us to live. In miracles almost wordless, without whys, we are saved, despite faithlessness and kisses cutting both ways.