Uncaring Sky
Donald P. Goodman III
Version 5.0,
St. John, please sing in me, and place thy voice in me
to sing the song thy Friend may wish for me to sing,
and guide my words to say the truth, whate'er it be,
and shrink not from this task of mine for anything,
remaining strong as thou, in boiling oil, were free
of weakness and of fear, an eagle taking wing;
and beg thy Mother, good St. John, my Mother, too,
to beg thy Friend and mine to guide my puny pen,
to keep my words aligned with right, along the true,
and raise my mind to wisdom high as mortal ken;
and ever give me guts to do what I must do,
to tell this holy tale to all my fellow men.
If ancient men were right, and Christian men are wrong,
and guts of birds can tell what may the future hold,
and rustling of wind in trees is goddess-song,
and men must e'er decode what Delphi has foretold,
and fickle sun-god would not ancient rounds prolong
unless a torn-out human heart his heart consol'd;
or if our modern men are right, and we mistake,
and there's no hand to guide the stars as 'round they spin;
if at the vastness of the universe we quake,
and our own smallness in it fills us with chagrin,
and in our desperation freedom seek to make,
the bloody hearts of infants our new ancient sin,
then what cause can we have for holding any hope?
why toil we in this world if this is all there be?
If all our labors and our woes are in the scope
of fickle gods' or heartless laws' mere blind decree,
why shouldn't reason guide the hand for chair and rope,
for all the sorrow, sufferings, and woe we see?
My sight is narrow, but the world is very wide,
and time o'er endless ages is for eons spann'd;
and yet there's nowhere puny men can run and hide,
that sorrow doth not find, and misery expand;
for men forever dwell at grief and sorrow's side,
and under misery's cruel burden try to stand.
Can Christian men give answer for this endless cry
that men for ages send to the uncaring sky?
I
For once, there was but destiny for gods and men,
fair Nona, young, yet ancient as is any Fate,
drew fiber from her mighty distaff, once again,
and spun a thread to stretch from birth to later date;
then Decima, the mother, cuts to length; and then,
the hag, old Morta, clips what sisters did create.
And who can guide the Fates? Who doth not heed their call?
Can man defy, or even will, to bend the knee?
When gods themselves stand powerless, and titans all
have threads thus spun and woven by the Fates' decree?
When mountains sprout and crumble, kingdoms rise and fall,
by will unknown, unknowable, of sisters three?
Who is the mother, maid, and hag who are so cruel
and cut short lives and hopes without a thought or care?
What guides the distaff and the scissors and the rule?
Need they be govern'd to ensure they're being fair?
Our sorrows and our miseries are but the school
for tyrants ruling those whose fates they do not share.
Like us, they spin and cut and weave; but do not die,
and so they do not live as we who here below
will learn to walk, then live our lives, then go to lie,
but they just spin and cut and weave, and never go;
for they who never weep are heedless of our cry,
and those who never sorrow pay no mind to woe.
Like us, but far above us, sharing not our life;
what hope have we of them, but misery and strife?
II
But now, like billiard balls, we bounce without an aim,
propelling one another in an endless chain
begun by unknown quarks playing some unknown game,
a game lost long ago, in ages so arcane
that though they are but bouncing balls, we cannot claim
to know what prompted such a lengthy, hard campaign.
Inscrutable, the Fates no longer have a face,
their motives, once unknowable, and once unknown,
and piercing which was well beyond our mortal place,
the ends of which it was our place but to bemoan,
are now at once known and nonexistent; space
is all that's left to wonder at; we are alone.
And so some bouncing bags of atoms still will ask
that we look on with wonder at some other bags
which burn out in the void; that we should should gladly bask
in awe at vast expanses, at a world which brags
about how many bags it has; its only task
to boast of all its bouncing, all its zigs and zags.
Great things and small; we all are equal in this sight,
all equal without meaning, purpose, goal, or end,
just rolling through a universe like beams of light,
and just as aimless, just as powerless to bend;
all helpless to do anything, to work or fight,
to move a thing on purpose, to a goal to tend.
We cannot understand; we shouldn't even try;
there's neither end nor purpose in the world, no why.
III
But no! the world is not controll'd by fickle Fates,
nor are we merely pool-balls bouncing to and fro;
our world the cryptic ends of weavers e'er negates,
machines made accidentally are its timeless foe;
far greater and more beautiful is what creates
the world, the order, which both we and it do know.
No man can read in leaves or guts of birds what comes,
nor calculate with numbers where the world may go;
the world still turns, the working of the sky still hums
long ages after auguries have fail'd to know,
and eons after every physicist succumbs
to th' fact the world equations quickly doth outgrow.
No matter what we gut or read or calculate,
we cannot see all ends; our eyes are just too weak,
our minds too small to take all in; we just must wait
to see what comes, and whether it be joy or bleak;
what might still empty cisterns, clear abundant plate,
what illness may us kill, what storm may havoc wreak.
And yet still more, there is what was and what is now,
and even these our sight is just too short to see,
and so we cannot lay out what we wish, and how
we might reach for our ends across this unknown sea;
but even less do our poor faculties allow
what is, what might have been, and what still yet may be
to come within our sight and in our point of view,
to do now bas'd on what might come at later date,
or for the present moment turn the past askew
such that all time this single moment did create,
and all the later moments from the present grew,
this moment specially designed by more than fate:
designed by one who's hampered not be feeble sight,
by eyes which see but what is happ'ning here and now,
but rather scans the whole of time and space with light
undimming and unstoppable, and need not bow
to anything, arranging all for good and right,
and ready to all creatures goodness to endow.
The world is guided by no merely mortal eyes,
nor is it bound to how some thick equation lies.
Conclusion
For every snowflake that has ever fallen white
and every grain of soil on which it's ever snow'd
and every bird that's walk'd or soar'd to heaven's height
and every drop of water which has ever flow'd
and each and every photon in each ray of light
and every beast that ever crept along its road
was guided by a Love that never sleeps or dies,
a Love that cares for each as if no other lives;
a Love that tells the truth, a Love that never lies;
a Love that's wrong'd as often as that Love forgives;
a Love that never falls and so ne'er need arise,
a Love receiving nothing, though it ever gives;
a Love which no amount of hate can ever mar;
a Love which guides the sun and moon and every star.