The Ruins of Paradise

I had a dream of a joyless man, sitting in the ruins of paradise. With flat voice and cold words he told me his tale, While the biting wind swept up flurries of snow ... His was a people that laughed and dreamed. Wrote poems, sang music, and danced in the light. Crafting, artistic, industrious, pure ... kept safe by their warriors like him. But from over the horizon there came a dark race. A people who knew not but war. Who could stand against the marvelous engine? Hungry wolves too familiar with pain. They came without warning. Struck without pause. Tore our women from our corpses with their bloodyhanded claws. And I was struck on the head in the midst of it all. Fell as if dead, but I woke from my fall. Every fragment of the past brings pain beyond words. See here - this tambourine? My little girl used to play it. Now how will she dance again? *** I woke with a gasp. There's a riddle I can't solve: How can peaceful goodness withstand the assault of bestial machines specialized for destruction? I cannot say how, but God grant me strength to protect beauty from the darkness. 8 October 2023