Meditation at Day's End

 

Meditation at Day's End 

--Anthony Hutchinson

 

We are such wretched creatures:

war, abuse (even when we say we love),

obliviousness to what we are doing to the mother

   that gave us birth (the earth)

   and to each other.

Wretched creatures.

 

But we have our moments of the sublime:

real love,

self-sacrifice,

compassion for not only our own,

   but for those totally strange.

Courage to fight the demons in our hearts

   and those of others.

Sublimely transcendent demi-gods.

We might be the center of the universe,

or the irrelevant margins of a wholly indifferent cosmos.

 

But the spark, consciousness, is in us.

It is the Imago Dei.

 

At night, we search for stars.

In day, we shelter our eyes from the burning sunlight.

And what bitter sweetness it all is!

We love, and we die.

We fight, and are reconciled.

We fear, but are consoled.

We dream for good or ill,

   but awaken.

 

And we hope.

We hope beyond all that we have experienced.

And it is sweet.