LIGHTING A FRAIL FLAME
By Stephen Reilly
Oh, sweet burn! Oh, delectable wound! Oh, soft hand!
Oh, delicate touch
That savours of eternal life and pays every debt! In slaying,
thou has changed death into life.
–St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love
Under this rising sun, in its faint light,
we gathered together to dream
and pray that no more will
young men drag themselves from battlefields,
the smell of gun-power and the dead
staining their senses gray.
Let no battle hymn inspire us.
Let’s never raise our voices,
wave our flags, to flame
the funeral pyres of the innocent.
Make this day our hope.
Dear Jesus, we call you
the Prince of Peace, the Savior,
and yet we keep ourselves crucified
to the despot’s dreams.
Like Nero, we fiddle and play
while our nations dance in flames.
Who among us grids up courage?
Whose voices sing in a wilderness where
warlords and tyrants wallow in blood
and would whip the fires of despair
into all-consuming flames?
When will God open His eyes
so that we may see?