Shovel of Dirt

Endangered Species

Perfect, comforting wakeup: mug of black Kona, two squares of 72% dark chocolate with forest mint (Endangered Species) and a third square waiting on the table here by my lift chair as I look out through porch rails and across to Shell Island into infinity. Perfection itself, the chocolate is not chewed: one square perhaps, because the chew is as exquisite as the taste. Each square is domed to fit the mouth, flat side on the tongue, convex dome up. Slight sip of coffee. Close eyes, focus as saliva fills mouth and chocolate dissolves. Wakens body and soul more soothingly than coffee alone. Oh goodness.

Thursday: peace. Here at any rate.

Here only.

The Peace of God

Another shooting. Most of us may be decent, but Balrog has escaped from Middle Earth, seized Potter’s invisibility cloak, and roams at large, out and about after daylight. Like the pooka, it appears to this one and that one as it will. Stirs fear, hatred, terror, why? because it can. Populates the planet with malevolent creatures: arrogant pseudo-intelligent beings of insane selfishness, hideous cruelty, warped certitude. Noah was the hope, the illusion, of a Dreamer.

Divine error: the Ark.

Nothing is what it seems and we are no longer what we believed ourselves to have been. A shooter in Charleston. ISIS. Qaeda. 9/11. Nation of Narcissists who cannot see the cause of evil because our mirror is broken. The Donald for clown relief. GWB and henchmen. Irresolvable hopelessness that cannot be seen by those of us in the penthouse. A pathetic prison tailor aids prisoners to escape. Fear. XNRT. LaPierre. Certitude. Rights without responsibilities. An irrational, insane and unseen, selfish circular evil of refusing healthcare for those who could not be aborted then come present into the Hopelessness of Devolving Poverty. The Covenant: never again will all life be destroyed by a flood. Noah didn’t initial the fine print: incoming: Global Warming. Dark irony: endangered species.

The peace of God, it is no peace

but strife closed in the sod.

Some alphabet moron in a collar piously said he won’t pretend to know what that haunting last line means. Percy is quite clear: the peace of God is life's struggles that end as the last spade of dirt is tossed onto one's grave.

The Peace of the Lord

be always with you.

And also with you.

And thank you very much Wm. Alex. Percy