First Father

Do you remember when I said
You’d never feel the sting of death?
But now I’m waiting where you left
Beside that snow-kissed clearing

I pressed a seed through that frozen fleece
The earth embraced you in the ground
No invention of my mind will ever compose
A melody so profound
I’m a priest afraid to pray
Terrified at what the silence couldn’t say
Tongue tethered to the skeptic beating in my chest

We’re no longer quite ourselves
Nor reflections of someone else
Lover, do you feel that tension
As we drift between silence and eternity?
Death is the road…road to awe
I stood atop the world
It’s asymmetry laid bare in front of me
Thanatophobic societies
Taking life to mourn their tragedies

I feared this world would never change
But you steady your resolve anyway
Let’s set the pen against the sword
How orphans long for peace
Before they learn to love the war!
Perhaps it’s our language
Perhaps we are incomplete
Words like shadows to what we see
Faint flickerings across the cavern in our minds
Candles in the dark, defiant to the night

“You pulled me through time”
Through the edgeless night
I learned to love as you learned to die
I’ll begin to feel again
And finish the chapter you couldn’t write

Candles in the dark, defiant to the night
Defiant to the shadow
You pull me through time
Through the edgeless night
I learned to love as you learned to die