Where is your soul when the silence is rending?
Where is your mind when your world falls apart?
Where were your tears when the darkness was sending
The signals which tore at the bonds of your heart?

What did you hear in the deafening silence?
What could you see in the pitch-dark of night?
How did you cry when the tear-banks were empty
And all that remained were the wild geese in flight?

Where is the meaning with wilderness rampant?
Where is the reason when prejudice reigns?
Where is the love when the love is discounted
And leaves just the husk and the skin and the stains.

Why do we weep in a world full of weeping?
Why should we sigh in a world full of sighs?
Why do we fight in a world full of violence,
Compounding the anger and feeding the cries?

Poor little broken one, why have you woken,
Better the sleep that disguises the pain,
That blots out the life filled with anger and strife, and
Erases the hurt of contesting the grain.

Better the dreaming which once you were dreaming.
Where sunshine is streaming and all is at peace,
Where laughter is leaping and shadows are creeping
And riding the waves to those islands of Greece

Where mountains are climbing a ladder to heaven
And rock faces plunge in the emerald deep,
With flying-fish skimming the crests of the currents
Surreal in the real which the real world can keep.

So why have you woken, my poor little broken one,
Why face the haunting, the biting, the bile?
Why place your heart on the sacrifice altar
Exposed to the blade of the evil one’s file?

Harrowing, sorrowing, constantly worrying,
Grieving, bereaving, a night without end,
A void without meaning, a space without substance,
A maelstrom of madness which nothing can mend.

Pray that the wings of the angel will cover you,
Sheltering you from the cold winds beyond,
Pray that the faith which alone can sustain you
Will ward off the force of the evil one's wand.

Black grows the night as the howling wind rises,
Bending the backs of the storm hardened trees,
Baying like banshees and clutching like goblins
Forcing the blood of the bravest to freeze.

Where now the walls of our fortress around us,
Where now the hearth of the embers that warm.
What will we do when our moorings start drifting
Pulled every way by the circular storm.

Go back to sleep now, my poor little broken one,
Close out the blackness and dream up the light.
I will watch over you, guard you and cherish you,
Holding you close ‘til the morning is bright.

One day the world will revolt at the lightlessness,
Turning in force on the sellers of hate,
Dispelling the wisps of the evil penumbra
And cutting the tendrils that .carry their weight.

One day the darkness will yield to the sunshine.
One day the bile will give way to fine wine
Draining the sadness in whirlpools of laughter,
Dousing the rage in the fruit of the vine.

One day the lamb will walk out with the lion,
One day the hawk will make peace with the dove.
Then I will wake you, my little forsaken one,
Then you'll be part of the story of love.

March 2005