Daniel Casey

Agape

A state of cowardice, 

one has to wonder

whatever are they afraid?

I suppose the answer is legion

Due to their god’s fear of demons.

There is a mother and father

who saw dark figures in advance of the sun

coming with bitter hate in their eyes

put there by some far western pogrom.

So our couple woke their daughter, their son

and raced across the hills and lowlands

to a farther place, then to somewhere still

more distant holding a promise of quiet.

Repose.

This is terrifying:

a raggedy man & a stern, sad wife

each holding the hand and dragging

the body of a drowned boy

while behind them trails a girl’s deep silence.

They come and they come and they come,

standing wide-eyed, palms out, aghast.

“These are not our brothers, sisters, fathers, or mothers.

Why love them more or just as our own?

They paw at us, claw at us, so how could they ever be trusted?

They’ll only want more and more of what is mine,

what is ours,” you demand, “Is that fair?”

Fear as an acrid salt,

a pang, a sting, a burn,

rather than a tasteless distant thing

that you can never turn around to see.

Fear as children,

a burden you’ve never mastered;

fear of being more than you are

for fear of being better than you are.

Fear as a fact; you a sad, little man

cowering in the corner of a room

at the deepest heart of your mansion.

Your walls bend back over you, topple,

and crush you under its weight.

The thousand hands you recoiled from

pick away the rubble

so you can breath again,

feel light, and face a kind eye

only wanting to pull you to safety; be safe with you.