Blessed Is He Who Cries Out in the Night
by Lynn Michael Martin
Blessed is he who cries out in the night,
Who sees and is not satisfied with peace,
Who will not sleep amid the world’s caprice,
Who knows that darkness does not disprove light.
He will not bow before a show of might,
Or praise murder or death, or grow obese
With selfish creeds upheld by thought-police.
He will not take what men say is his right.
For no one else has seen, however dim,
The hope in contrast that his faith implied,
Even the ones who claim to stand with him.
Blessed is he who knows the edge of sight
To be the contour of what stands outside—
Who sees the shadow of eternal light.
Lynn Michael Martin hopes that his poetry can connect with others who struggle with the tension between a glorious hope and a self-interested realism—and who find it hard to be content with the complex and muddy life that usually results.
Photography by Kenneth Godoy