Testimoney to the Night ((A poem on peace)(revised 7-2010))

Testimony to the Night



In the quiet of the arctic night—
in its deep northern skies
dim are the lights, in its cold
evening frost…!
Even the stars of the arcticseem
silently stone froze!
Here, is where you’ll find
peace within the beast—!
For a moment anyways.
Remote, no ears or words
to clutter up the mind:
to entrench the throat.
Here, is where you die…
(for a moment, just a moment).

Here, the sky has eternal eyes
eyes with cosmic tidestides
that never rest: they don’t
war with one another, they just
come and go, throughout the Universe—
Here my eyes seek and search
countless hours, ebbing with the tide
sweeping the heavens above, alive!

Numbing, always changing—
are the cosmos, the heavens
And, here resides a strange peace…
a strange and somber peace
With an army of stars to light up
man’s immortal path: shinning,
silently in the dark—ebbing,
across its eldritch dark zenith
Time has no relevance herein this Cold
and oddly vacant space
that goes everywhere and nowhere.
As I look up, standing upon this bridge
one star bridging the next—as if,
as if they were kings and queens:
guardians of the heaves—
O—Yes! A strange, strange peace…
envelopes me, this night, praise be to
the Most High
for its flaming, blazing firmaments—
It takes away the thoughts of war,
of the foes, unholy immortals…
the enemies that never rest
I hear music, harmony from afar;
and even farther, I hear a storm:
I wonder if God has opened the door
to his storeroom?

Let it be tomorrow—war
and its perpetual dust
let me have Orion to night,
and tomorrow
I’ll take the bleak dim sun
Nobodies listening—to the tidings
from heaven— for peace,
that’s why I take night’s peace,
and leave tomorrow for war
I hear the cry of so man:
“Peace, peace…”
and behind closed doors
voices are saying:
“When will this night die, end?”
Hoping the sun will rise soon
so they can start the war up again…

I see no sign of tears, for the dying

a blood-red moon stirs the floor of the
sea; with fainting breath, silently—
I just want quiet, stillness—peace
I tell the world at large—myself,
strange as it may seem, it is all I seek…
Eh! Yes! Eyes now stare at me, a voice
says: “How can this be? When we
are born and cursed with the devil’s seed!
for he even stirs the cosmos, with his spectral
here and now…!”
Hence, I’ve come to the conclusion,
there will be no peace on earth,
this is my testimony to the night!...
For tomorrow I fight!


Notes by the author: “…this is a deep, and restless poem with many images; the secret of the poem (to me) is the sun, as it has always rose, so it shall again, tomorrow, and again another tomorrow, and so shall peace not exist, as long as it is in the hands of mankind.” The author has spent time in the Arctic, l996. 7/7/05 #752 this is part one of three parts; part two, to this poem is called: “House of the Goblin”… Reedited and revised, 7-2007.