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.