Requiem

I walk past the guardhouse.
The Monday evening Bible study
with the men dressed in white
concluded.
We sang, prayed
and discussed the resurrection.
Where do the dead go
after they have died?
I did not know.
Past the barbed wire
the darkness awaits.
Summer is growing old
and the days are briefer.
I drive away
down an empty desert road
toward home.
The full moon hangs low
in the East,
still following me
as he did in childhood.
I click on the radio.
The public station is playing
Mozart's Requiem.
I turn up the volume
and lower the windows
so the moon,
the cactus and the coyotes
can hear the death mass.
I want silent company when I grieve.
Where do the dead go?

I did not know.

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12 thoughts on “Requiem”

  1. Here's one I wrote:

    I long to be with youAnd hear your words of wonderTo listen to your truthTo satisfy my hungerI'm lost inside your mindWhen you're sitting next to meIn you I seem to findThat we were meant to beShine down on my soulWith stars of love and beautyAnd never let me goThrough streets of gold and rubyI give it all to youMy life, my heart, my dreamsKnowing when life is throughWe'll walk in golden streams

    Cole Houx

  2. Thank-you, Richard.  Strange how beauty is so often a synthesis of joy and sorrow.  Where did I read recently that in God the mystery of beauty is solved?  I've been re-reading Tolkien rather than Ecclesiastes:

    "And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."

  3. I'm not sure where we go exactly, but I'm hoping that we end up safe in the everlasting loving arms of Jesus (Its the chorus of a song I like - written for kids but also suitable for adults who read Ecclesiastes and who don't like going to the dentist  http://www.fischy.com/song-lyrics/safe-in-the-arms-lyrics.pdf)

  4. That's right.

    “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”—The Apostle Paul, Letter to the Romans (9:1)“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”—The Apostle Paul, Letter to the Philippians (4:4)“[We are] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”—The Apostle Paul, Second Letter to the Corinthians (6:10)“Joy is protected from being flippant by steady sorrow. Sorrow is protected from being fatal by steady joy.”–John Piper

  5. Well, faith is the ASSURANCE of things hoped for. How does saving faith emerge? First off, we use our perception and our mind to hear and see and understand and validate a testimony to the truth of Christ. Secondly, we must have the Spirit's illumination as He opens the eyes of our hearts to see and embrace the spiritual beauty (glory) in the face of Jesus Christ. Without a taste of Christ's captivating excellence, a person's conviction of the truth of the Gospel may be nothing more than the devil's useless assurance that Christ is the Way and the Truth. The devil does not apprehend Christ as beautiful and precious. He does not taste Christ as attractive. His faith is dead because it is not animated by the spiritual apprehention of spiritual beauty.

  6. Beautiful! I'm right there with you.
    =======================Amazing grace the sound.A rose, perhaps, the sight.But wouldn't a sprinkle of dirtBe as sweet?Dance under the moon.Sing for the fallen.A toast still remainsfor the living.Shadowed glances. Broken whispers.Soft are the tearsthat wash acrossremembrances of youth.Asleep in the cold embracethe long night commences.A sprinkle of stardustmay welcome the morning.

  7. Richard, 

    Brahm's Requiem is worth a listen on a grey, cold, stormy evening.  A bright elegy.

    Blessings!

    George Cooper 

  8. I did not know cactus listened and heard
    But
    I have seen cactus weep
    And thought
    How did they see
    What they saw?

  9. Hi Cole, I guess I sometimes lean more toward 1 Corinthians 13:12 - At
    present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time
    will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present
    all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come
    when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me! (J.B. Phillips New Testament).  Best wishes, Al

  10. Well, I agree that we can only know a fraction of the truth now. I don't see how this contradicts what I said about faith though. You appear now to have an assurance that you will see Jesus face to face thus contradicting your earlier statement that you wasn't sure.

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