POETRY Reading: On the Paradox of a Dying Child, by John Ellis

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

My light was out when the message bore
the state of the child’s condition
and brought me kneeling to the floor
and reading what the father knew—
the object as inviolable, though reason claimed we too
would not cease in giving way
when met by forces, I recalled
my own children and imagined they…
Oh, God, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

By light, I sought to reconcile
Esse and affliction
To no unknowing dying child
to each his own condition (human)
through surreptitious bloody trial, the alter on which He too
long ceased in giving way
when met by suffering, hear Him call, Talitha cumi
on The Day.
Oh, God, You can.