Kingdoms Of Silence
Only in our darkest days,
When the grey storm clouds hang heavy in the sullen sky;
Only when the spiralled descent becomes too steep
Do we, the fallen, ever turn our cries to kingdoms unseen.
I now personify myself as a ticking time-bomb,
An inevitable shift in a cataclysmic cycle that
Sooner or later, without a shadow of doubt,
Must release itself from dormancy, and in a flash of blood
And destruction will unleash its fury unto the world.
Knowing what will someday come, I choose to steer away
From what will soon become my irreversible destiny; knowing that
Soon it will be too late to turn back on the road
I tacitly chose by walking in the shadow of death.
I am disturbed by what I see, for I quickly understand
That I have wandered too far down the beaten path
To return with only my own aid - the flames of the torches
Behind me have been extinguished by the breath of
Lingering ghosts, and the bridges above the cimmerian fords
Have been incinerated and torn asunder by the cloven feet
Which pursue me relentlessly.
The outlook is judged bleak by these scarred mortal eyes,
And the only solution I foresee is my annihilation -
Withn the last remenants of my fleeting humanity, I realise
That to save an entire world, I must embrace my own oblivion;
Over my own existence, i must act with the authority of God
And be the hand that wields His axe.
Then, with some vague, estranged memory of the Creator
And his seemingly unfathomable plan for me, which once
I held to tighter than the lust for my demise,
I send out a cry to Heaven, begging not for salvation
But for God Himself to smite me, to save me from the
Accountability and guilt of not satisfying His will.
But my cry, as expected, falls upon deaf ears,
And I know God will play no hand in my destruction -
He weeps, in His silence offering me salvation and redemption
Yet greeted with only sour self-righteousness and defiance;
And so the angels and His servants stand silent among
The collonades of Heaven as I turn my back in despair,
Seeking instead a response from a kingdom of shadow
And flame - a place that even in my darkness I fear, yet now seek
Out of sheer desperation.
I bring my request before the gates of a dark kingdom,
And by silence I am denied entry into Oblivion's arms;
Under the pulsating of a crimson sky and the mockery
Its glower bestows as a reflection of my desired fate,
I rememeber the greatest trick the Prince of this silent kingdom
Ever played was fooling those mortal lineage
That he and his kingdom did not exist.
I turn away from the wind-blasted gates of Hades
And, without knowing how or why, I am once more
Standing at the yellow wood where the forked road diverges,
Feeling there the faint presence of the One before whom
I once devoutly knelt.
Confronted finally with an unnerving reminder that the pen which
Scribes the pages, the hand which orchestrates the composition
From beginning to end, is and always has been my own.
And suddenly I am aware and grateful
As I stand alone at the crossroads -
That although the kingdoms are silent, someone
From far above, bearing no anger but only love,
Stays my reckless hand, removing the onyx sword it grasps
And in an act of complete and utter mercy
Links His hand with my own; reminding me
I do not walk the path alone.
