If We Try To Ask Why

If We Try To Ask Why It was another plain morning in the mundane business belt until we felt the day stay still, and we knelt to pray at will. In the decade since our engrained tranquility was strained, our prayers have waned, and cooperation was not sustained. As proof time is trained to be aloof to tears of our grieving, the babies born to widows, our high schools are now receiving. And in history books, I fear a new chapter must appear … Alongside its heavy content, the sheen on serene sheets shall screen the extent of torment The Event means to they who lament … Until the day they die, for some, when the autumn sun is high in the September sky, the past and present run as one: The scene, never done, repeats; people run; the crowd retreats … And, where the cloud of carnage meets startled city streets, the ash painting the panorama underpins our divine Manhattan skyline mourning her twins … If we try to ask why, theologians will explain, when God grants free will, evil may reign, despite its pain. My theory, one of many but as good as any, is that the gist of why a sadist’s bloodlust exists isn’t to be endeared to God, but feared like God. Some philosophers pry, “Why was the September sky a nearly perfect hue of select, pastel blue?” The poets sigh, “… because on this date the land stayed dry when the cascade of nearby angels refused to cry; they came to fixate upon the souls they had to elevate, and through the demure azure, the dead felt peacefully lead …” If we heed our ancestors’ lead, never letting faith recede, the wealth of our prayers might impede the stealth of the slayers, but if we try to ask why, our first task may be to find ourselves resigned to God sometimes being disinclined to thwart an evil mastermind within humankind. E. V. Wyler