I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again
To bless His own. My soul from place to place
On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face
Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain.
Then came I to a place where death and pain
Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn,
With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn,
Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain.
And through that Golgotha of blood and clay,
Where watchers cursed the sick dawn, heavy-eyed,
There (in my dream) Christ passed upon His way,
Where His cross marks their nameless graves who died
Slain for the world's salvation where all day
For others' sake strong men are crucified.
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What a somber moment this poem touches upon. I envision the simple white crosses that grace so many military cemetaries, and this poem just makes this "tribute" so meaningful. The thought that Jesus witnesses the crosses in such a manner...is a teary-eyed paused on my part. "There (in my dream) Christ passed upon His way,/Where His cross marks their nameless graves who died/Slain for the world's salvation where all day/For others' sake strong men are crucified."
This poem moves me in another way: thoughts of those now in Iraq (quite a few are some of my former students)and the civil wars that are currently taking place (last I read, the total is 60)just take so many lives. Freedom in some cases; ill-caused reasons in most...war just seems so senseless weighed with the consequences and cost. The line, "Where watchers cursed the sick dawn, heavy-eyed", seem to express what I am trying to write. Oh...I am now thinking of lines from "Doomsday" by Plath and lines from Whitman's "I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world...all these--all the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon, see, hear, and am silent."
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