Vulture Magazine The Michaelmas Issue 2013 | Page 21

universe, standing on the beach at Omaha fingers stretching to form a triangle with the early evening stars as a
rain of gunfire rips through our naked bodies and as our
knees greet the floor we smile with content for we know
we have played our part in the advent of a greater good.
I saw glory once. Carved into the rear of a bench in
congress by the illegal immigrant who cleans the water fountain and fills the towel dispenser and he asks
for nothing in return
but the freedom that his diaphragm desires to speak the musings that line his
life-blood like saliva through a brass instrument which
calls to end a one-hundred year war. He is sweet and
he is kind. But he is not safe, for he has dreams. A
philosophy which lives in a single moment of time,
and that resounds around these hollow walls, breaking
through the imaginary dome of fortuitous self-opinion which surrounds our countries leaders , parting
their liquor inspired waltz of lust and lechery like
the Red Sea. His message simple and his motive pure,
they cut him down like a dog in the street, for 'he
looks not like us, you see his skin and his teeth, are
stained, and there's no cash when there is no deceit'.
I saw glory once. On a hill outside of a roman city,
through the eye of a transcendental megaphone which
provided the user with the voice of god. I saw glory once. Through the eye of a teenager who lies dying
between the east and the western wall. I've seen glory
once. In a field of no nationality. Where two separate
peoples of separate faiths, beliefs, languages, who
don't even know how to walk in line make their way towards each other with each step quicker than the last.
There are no guns and no documents, but two halves of
one whole righteous good. They are running now and as
they quicken they chant as if no other words exist: love
is real. Love is real. No longer do we persecute each
other for what our fathers have done. No longer do we
fight like animals under the shadow of foreboding night
to gain a piece of meat for ourselves that could feed
two men. Instead we share. Share in the beauty, and the
darkness. Share in the drought and the harvest. Share
in the belief that we have a common purpose. Share in
the pursuit of knowledge. Share in the ambition that
on our dying day, when the sky opens and we walk towards our final place we will know we did the best we
could by our fellow man and we will see the glory.
Nicholas hampson