Here, and there

Edna St Vincent Millay
I read, re-read, re-read, your
poem 'Dirge with no Music' the
other day and it left me
with the saddest feeling of

a world grown cold and hard
all sorrow open and never
closed, all love, all compassion
flown
with no chance of redemption

for a people who don't recognise
God - our God is dying
all over the world
all over again.

In my tiny dust-home
I have him here, he lives
the three-in-one and when I
pray, afterwards, I feel
him hold my hand, or
he sends my mother or

my father in - the touch
is real, it wakes me
up sometimes the pressure
on my fingers as some
unseen one
holds my hands.

It's odd to feel compassion from
beyond where we are, from
another dimension we
do not know - it's odd
to feel more cared for

by the gone ones
and to look on the human
world I see, and recognise
only selfishness and cruelty.

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