Glory of That Night

Thought I'd share a poem I wrote in 2004.
Merry Christmas everyone. :)


Glory of That Night
December 2004

Midnight blue as velvet
punctured true with a million stars
Silver-rimmed moon,
hung by invisible mobile-threads
Darkness draped like fabric
while sheep sleep on the plains
and shepherds stand watch

Child's cry piercing desert night air,
painted miles and miles away
drenched in the color of Holiness
Creation shudders and shifts
to cradle its newborn Creator
This Divinity in humanity-
the eternal Light source
to a fallen world
The canvas known as Today
woven and held fast by this Everlasting,
framed by glory to glory

Darkness draped like fabric
torn and pushed wide
White and yellow spilling,
blue and purple bowing aside
The armada of heaven armed with light
robed in 'Hallelujah's
Voices puncturing midnight with Truth -
O choir, sing and never end!

Warm with the red of human life
soft with the skin of mortals
This Divinity in humanity-
the will of the Father,
a lamb placed in the manger
A lamb placed on the tree
where it was finished
Color us as salt
from a promise drawn long ago
Death held no grip, no hue,
on the eternal Light source
to a fallen world

Midnight blue as velvet
punctured true by a million angels
Silver-rimmed moon,
held by the newborn Son
Darkness sewn shut like fabric,
while sheep scatter in joy
and shepherds quake
As though on wings of etheral eagles
they will fly
and worship.

Twenty

Anyone who knows me, knows that I enjoy the zombie genre. No, I haven't seen the classic zombie movies, but my tastes lean more towards contemporary zombies. I enjoy Shawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later (which is particularly unnerving), and I have been thoroughly enjoying The Walking Dead on AMC.

I've had many hypothetical conversations with my friends and husband about what we would do in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I'm one of those people. No, we're not preparing ourselves for any such thing, but it's fun to have a circling debate about what areas would be the safest, how would you get supplies, what would you use as weapons with the skills that you have, and things like that. On that note, I would never actually want to see a zombie apocalypse or anything of the sort come to fruition. I like zombies the best out of pirates and ninjas -- two other highly violent groups that are romanticized in pop culture -- because they don't actually exist.

What makes the zombie film genre so interesting is that it's not really all about the zombies. It's not about the gore, no matter how much there is or how impressive the effects are, but the bottom storyline is all about human nature. The Walking Dead especially illustrates the dynamics of human nature in the face of dire survival. When the characters are forced to protect their loved ones and make alliances with strangers for the sake of surviving, the line between good and bad, right and wrong, eventually start to get blurred. Mistakes are made. Friends become enemies. The moral world as we know it (at least in Western culture) cracks in very fine, and major, ways. Desperation pushes us beyond logical reasoning. Every action is justified.

In some ways, it's a fitting caricature of a post-9/11 America.