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| Quaker portrait |
Odds
Against Light
After
reading Fox's Quaker journal
Prague, December,
where the light dies early,
shockingly early.
In the blackening afternoon air
what bites my senses more
fiercely -- The cold?
Or the fumes of fired coal?
The street light's glow
or the quick piercing of headlights
drive me into my room.
(The dark is a blanket over bare
shoulders.) I watch
the car lights breech the pane,
crash at the wall and climb.
Fox said it is not
the cracks it catches
but the light itself
that happens to be the thing,
the story, the glory
of God in men.
And in crumbling rooms
in Prague in winter
when the sun goes early.
Prague, December,
where the light dies early,
shockingly early.
In the blackening afternoon air
what bites my senses more
fiercely -- The cold?
Or the fumes of fired coal?
The street light's glow
or the quick piercing of headlights
drive me into my room.
(The dark is a blanket over bare
shoulders.) I watch
the car lights breech the pane,
crash at the wall and climb.
Fox said it is not
the cracks it catches
but the light itself
that happens to be the thing,
the story, the glory
of God in men.
And in crumbling rooms
in Prague in winter
when the sun goes early.
-J. O'Brien
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| The journal, with more flattering (if weird) portrait |
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