Advent XVI

by Kenneth Godoy

Life is worth but little,
we live and die, our skin becomes
the crumbs of earth, or dissipate into the sky
forming clouds of rain.

Here, within the raining, this weeping sky
upon the death of us, we waken from the womb again
finding only devastation, death abounds like grass
men and women lost for little reason, human dignity,

the worth of blood and life reduced to arbitrary murders,
genocides or cancer; we hang men for the color of their skin
we shoot people for the God they worship, children
strangled by the wire lie here, subsumed into the earth beneath us

with no voice or sound, people come to the edge of life and disappear
What is joy in all of this? If goodness is still good despite our sins
then where does good reside and how can we become the goodness
for which we strive?

Meanwhile, in a tiny stall, two people look upon their child in love
and despite the darkness hold the baby to the night
and see, with silent awe,
the darkness disappear into a dawning light.

Artwork by Joyce Hansen