Broken Trust

The building is hard and the breaking is easy.

Trust, like a crust, once crumbed, then so slow the healing:

Slip of tongue, slip of thought, slip of mind,

All so easy accomplished.

And the winds of our desolation howl

Through the corridors of silence.

Let us begin at the start

With the gleaming fruit and the sibilant, susurous whisper,

“Is it really true?”

The itch of desire and the grasping.

They took and they ate, and now

See the whole world spinning,

And unbelief steps forth,

And the world lies dying.

And the children struggle and smile,

All through our history.

And the traitor’s kiss

Burns on our heats and our lips.

Yes, we know the music:

The piper’s tune, which compels, with its burning rhythm

And our feet turn lock-wise, clockwise to the river

Where we drown in the acid tears and recriminations.

Here is betrayal:

A king on a roof spies a girl and destroys her husband;

A mad, sad king throws spears at his lyre-boy singing;

A woman with shears creeps close to a sleeping hero;

A brother with goat-skinned arms takes some stew to his father;

A soldier returns and his child pays the price of his folly,

Out on the tear-stained hills, with the maidens, weeping;

Back even further

Two brothers walk out in a field, but the one plots murder. ..

They stream through our knowing

Part of ourselves, borne in our blood’s cold thickening,

The choosing of self, over and over and over,

And the dead dust stirs on the gravestones of belonging,

Where there is no vow, no trust,

Just the soul’s long sickening

In the fever deeps where we fall from the truth we promised.

Everyman wanders

Through the moonlit garden, nervous of shapes and shadows,

Soldiers behind,

Swords glinting in cold, hard starlight,

And the wind in the olives murmurs of infinite sorrow.

How shall he stumble,

Through the mire and the mess

And the shame of his heart beating shallow?

Here where the Man, torn by prayer, rises calm, rises ready,

Steps into place with all grace,

And the turncoat, squirming,

Puts on bravado, coarse, like a shield of paper,

Comes, gives his kiss, sharp as the serpent’s shudder,

And the tears of that night still burn in the ice of our failure.

Kyrie eleison ...

Always .. always ..