What did we do that has so displeased you?
Was our sacrifice so inadequate that you should pour
your molten lava with such stark streaks across our skies?
What can we do to appease your wrath o gods?
Layer upon layer of anger and fury
escalating with each nanosecond,
each brushstroke an all-consuming fire.
Destruction and devastation,
colours of such exquisite vividness
forcing us to look away and hide
lest the intensity blind us
or as Lot’s wife turning to look longingly at Sodom,
lest we become not pillars of salt but pillars of ash,
fire and brimstone raining upon us from the heavens.
Trembling and shivering
as if plunging into an icy pool,
we shield our eyes lest they liquefy in your heat.
With pain so piercing and penetrating,
brutally finite and unforgiving
a finale of full immersion errupts
into the cosmic cauldron bubbling and spewing,
unleashing energies hitherto contained
under extreme pressure intensifying
a trillion nuclear explosions,
annihilating all that lives,
astronomical and boundless.
Armageddon.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Ponder your mortality o little man and
observe the magnitude and magnificence of All,
visible and invisible, all that has been and is yet to come.
Though minuscule as a grain of sand on a beach,
the ocean pounding relentlessly,
grinding away at our life’s marrow with rhythmic monotony,
o little man,
there is a greater purpose to your Being,
an incomprehensible Wholeness of such expanse
that would lift you to sweet, intoxicating realms of rapture
if you would only allow it to do so.
Let go and look within.
Stillness, silence and solitude be your travelling companions.
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This post began as a reflection upon one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever witnessed, looking out of my lounge window. I was thinking about how early man might have interpreted such a fire-like sunset but ended up thinking about the approach of Lent and Ash Wednesday in the Christian Church…much pondering going on. Perhaps it is the long Winter and I am missing being outside in the sun and fresh air and also the milestone in my life now that all my children are officially adults!
korsakkorner 