Pall of darkness on road to Damascus;
It’s a sad indictment of light’s reform.
The mood is tense and turning fractious;
What says the message in this rising storm?
They do not hear its thunder. Are they deaf
to its rumbling; to its tremulous pound?
They are so broken of spirit, no clef
can orchestrate meaning, make sense of sound.
How loud must the message be amplified
before these soldiers are stopped in their tracks?
What lightning, what thunder must coincide
in their hearts and minds? … meanwhile Kingdom cracks.
. All roads lead to somewhere, they are the course
. of discovery; fortune and remorse.

© Tim Grace, 29 July 2012

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To the reader: Two years on… and the crisis intensifies; a sad indictment of geo-political posturing. As tallied, the numbers describing death and displacement are staggering. Associated stories are horrendous; and yet, the map of suffering and destruction consumes itself with ravenous ferocity. Nothing to do with justice. Misguided conviction plays out another confrontation; another catastrophe; another war crime – such a pity.

To the poet: Man of darkness on the road to Damascus. A conversion story, where Saul takes on a simple journey that leads to a complex tale of self-discovery. Paul (Saul’s alter ego) emerges from the flash-point a transformed individual. In Aristotle’s theatrical framework (Poetics) Saul’s crisis is the turning-point; the reversal, from which Paul seeks resolution. The equivalence of one man’s story…

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