Cities Fade

Years, years pass by the gate of my eye

my walls tremble and shake

for the earth has obeyed a most dreadful command

This city is frail, this city is weak

time strikes with ferocity,

cataclysm after cataclysm,

only a soul to release from out of these walls.

When will this happen? soon

but, for now, the city has been spared

and the citadel still stands

only to be rocked to and fro

by the horrendous consequences of this calamity

O Hell! This is Hell!

only one grace remains:

love still spurts forth and is manifest

in worry after worry

for those faces so dimly lit in my memory.

If only the souls belonging to those faces

would know this love-- my love,

if only

love could last

forever

then my scrambling mind would have peace!

Reality then reminds me of these walls

they are old and crumbling

they’ll become ruins and return to dust

Perhaps, a new city will take my place,

my legacy tucked away in between the

cracks of new and better sidewalks,

better than the ones I adored to tread.

But why must everything come to ruin?

Why can’t love endure and cities be remembered?

Why must the well get poisoned--

the wick burn out?

Will this love    light a fire?

or will my sparks be quenched

by the moistened hearts of this selfish generation?

How can I be sure

that after all the things I try

my efforts won’t 
just go awry?

O grim Reality give me peace!

Don’t pester me with your dismal pinings

don’t let me muse in your rigid frames

remembering the countless names that go before me--

cities who once stood strong and mighty

now crushed, convoluted and crowned with nothing more

than the ill desire to be outdone

by the very sons they've birthed

So where do I bury my treasure?

In what do I place my name:

In words, 
ideas, 
worldviews?

Alas, I know men:

misinterpreting, 
falsifying,  
distorting-- men!

Young Cities, flourish!

as this dying city fades.


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Cities Fade: Origins

This poem was written a little over a year ago. The inspiration came from one of my senior year high school teachers. She was an older lady, very vibrant and always ready to encourage me in whatever I was doing. Often, after class was over (this class being my last class of the day), I would talk to her for hours about God, science, and just about everything in between. But one day she had an accident and badly hurt her head. It was tragic. She wasn't able to work for well over two months, and to her greatest dismay, she wasn't able to teach or help her students whom she loved dearly.

So hearing about what had happened to her and knowing her beliefs about God and science (she didn't believe in life after death) I attempted to write this monologue through "her" perspective. It is an attempt to enter her mind and capture her worldview to bring out a specific end. And I believe the poem, as much I as tried to enter a different worldview, has as much of my spirit and my estimations in it as it does hers.

Purpose

Throughout the poem I try to portray a person with a naturalistic worldview. A naturalistic worldview is essentially a view that holds to the belief that only the physical universe exists; there's nothing transcendent, no spiritual/moral reality; and, most despairingly, no God. What did I find in this world? I found a person in this world to be hopeless. Where is a lasting legacy? What is their part good for? What is it really that will establish and give lasting weight to anything they do? The sad truth to all those questions is what I tried to make evident through the poem. Namely, there is no future hope, and no certainty that what you do really matters or will have the effect you want it to have.

The Christian Hope

As a Christian, my soul is comforted with a sure and everlasting comfort found in the Bible. So many passages come to mind when thinking of eternity and true, lasting value. I am reminded of 1st Peter 1:24-25

"All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever." 

Or passages like Hebrews 12:18-24 which speak of the heavenly Jerusalem of which we are eternal citizens. But of all the passages that speak directly or indirectly about eternity and life after death, the one most dear to me (and which I believe sums up the very essence of eternity) is John 17:3

"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." 

Lasting worth, hope, eternal life, and enduring glory are found in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is the ultimate hope of a Christian, that everything is summed up and held together in and by Him. I can confidently then say I am sure that what I do in this life will have an eternal impact, since the king of eternity Himself is the one who guides me and gives direction to my steps. If naturalism were true, all would fade-- we, these frail, mortal cities, would eventually become nothing. But if a soul knows Christ, that soul has a hope that transcends time and space.

Soli Deo Gloria