THE CITY OF LIGHT—PARIS AGAIN—NOVEMBER 2015

Now we are a tear in the shape of a person—

a tear that screams.

Or maybe we are a blood-drop who is a person—

blood that wails

and walks or rather stumbles

upon our planet formed

to be a blood-drop, a teardrop,

and the entire planet is screaming.

The planet and we, made for one another,

are pain moving upon pain.

The planet floats, reels

upon a foundation

that is not a noble elephant,

a patiently pleasant turtle,

or the dependable shoulders of Atlas.

The planet floats, reels

upon perhaps sounder foundation—

whole horror.

Now we know that there are Believers

who adore horror.

Those Believers may rejoice

when joy is destroyed,

supposedly convinced

that the only purity is pollution,

cruelty the sole permissible cult,

death the one true faith.

So the soul, like the Earth,

attains the purity of worshipped pollution.

Terror thus may compose reality,

and a screaming tear, a drop that is a person,

will not be heard.

Who among gods in the depths of height

can concoct help, healing, wellness?

Has hope been conceived yet,

a mirror in the void to answer

our own agonized shining?

And yet, despite terror, we do shine at times,

a shape, a drop trained by love,

that survives by shining

for the sake of shining.

The curve of a tear may be defined therefore

as a smile, a smiling blood-drop.

Are we brave enough to re-invent fun

as wellness inconceivable

by its well-trained killers?

Is killing the same as believing?

Somewhere, Someone has conceived of purity

that is fun, which is not pollution.

“Those Believers want to destroy

the things worth living for—

food, wine, friends.” 

© Stephen Margulies, 2017

Christmas Illumination Champs-Elysées, Paris
Photo by Didier Boy de la Tour;
Koert Vermeulen principal lighting designer & Marcos Vinals Bassols artistic director
from Wikimedia Commons