BY DR. AGONSON
Broken glass, shattered home,
my ruins of soot and ash.
Fallen sky, no more roof,
mere refuse, scattered trash.
I would have died rather than see
the rising flames in front of me;
Oblivion! My grave I’d rather know
before my house’s ashes fell like snow.
And wandering ‘mid broken beams,
another beam, sunlight, it seems—
the careless sun regards no tragedy
but rises still in his full majesty.
Where pane once was there’s still some broken glass;
and through these shards, the sun chooses to pass.
There’s light in mourning;
through sorrow, comes morning.
Mourning this morning.
I find a skull within the gathered dust.
A little, blackened skull shown by a gust
that blew away what covered it. Dark blaze—
those shadowed eyes!—a haunting, pleading gaze
that sets my troubled mind afire
my broken soul in guilt enmire.
Yet staring, I cannot help but think it beautiful, a child’s death, so beautiful, a skull so beautiful. I admire the dead who are dead, but these boys, their screams in the fire—that sound will always live. I am a wraith, the ruin of my home embodied—a revenant specter of what was.
Tale Told 