When I was a child,

young,

I cried burning white fear,

legs pulled to chest,

alone

in the dark.

Terror,

not for myself,

but for a soul,

that of my mother.

Terror,

for the future demon penance

she was destine to endure.

It was so vivid.

I could feel the flames,

smell the foul breath,

reach out and touch

the mangled face

of the fallen bright star.

Hear her wailing woe.

Knowing it meant eternity.

How did one,

so small,

so new,

come to know such dread?

Who was so learned

as to foretell tragedy

with such detail,

and so much assiduity

as to convince a child

of his own mother's damnation?

The answer is not as surprising

as one might hope,

nor as important as I would like.

A man of God.

Such easy scapegoats they do make;

and for years he did.

But, in an unremarkable moment,

in an unheralded year of adulthood,

I laid

legs pulled to chest,

alone in the dark,

and for the first time

I saw this man

that I long burdened with blame,

as a man with no significance,

and, as I watched shadows play across the wall,

I could see him as no more

than a passing actor

silhouetted in a stage light,

a stock character

shown once,

in an ever evolving script.

He had served a purpose

that I neither wanted,

nor needed,

but someone,

something had.

Something required

a child,

so riddled by guilt

and fear

that they dared not question deeper.

It was no man of God,

no demon,

no individual

so cunning,

so cruel.

Alone in the dark,

I decided to do

as I had done

as a child.

I turned on a light

and looked around.

When the dark canvas

of the unknown

was shown light,

it became bright,

and fear was no where to be found.