Contemplation Of The Sword

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.

The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,        formerly used to kill men, but

In the sense of a symbol.

The sword: that is: the storms        and counter-storms of general destruction; killing        of men,

Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or        less intentional, of children and women;

Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,        the innocent

Perverted into assassin and poisoner.

The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible        baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.

The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,        mass-torture, frustration of all

That starred man's forehead.

Tyranny for freedom, horror for        happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.

Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.

Dear God, who are the whole splendor of things and the sacred        stars, but also the cruelty and greed, the

And vileness, insanities and filth and anguish: now that this        thing comes near us again I am finding it

To praise you with a whole heart.

I know what pain is, but pain can shine.

I know what death is,        I have

Longed for it.

But cruelty and slavery and degradation,        pestilence, filth, the

Of men like hurt little birds and animals . . . if you were

Waves beating rock, the wind and the iron-cored earth,

With what a heart I could praise your beauty.

You will not repent, nor cancel life, nor free man from

For many ages to come.

You are the one that tortures himself to        discover himself:

I

One that watches you and discovers you, and praises you in little        parables, idyl or tragedy,

Intolerable God.

The sword: that is:

I have two sons whom I love.

They are twins, they were born        in nineteen sixteen, which seemed to us a dark

Of a great war, and they are now of the

That war prefers.

The first-born is like his mother, he is so

That persons I hardly know have stopped me on the street to        speak of the grave beauty of the boy's face.

The second-born has strength for his beauty; when he strips        for swimming the hero shoulders and wrestler

Make him seem clothed.

The sword: that is: loathsome disfigurements,        blindness, mutilation, locked lips of

Too proud to scream.

Reason will not decide at last: the sword will decide.