‘Dying, that We May Live’

In Virginia was planted a little garden,

Which in time grew large and fruitful.

And over everything in that land, stillness lay:

The Big Houses and the cabins

With their spirituals and their ballads,

Rows of tomato and collard greens

And persimmon and apple trees,

Climbing vines of muscadine

And tangled bundles of honeysuckle.

In Massachusetts was built a shiny city,

And in that place restlessness reigned;

Even sleep at night they could scarce abide.

Machines and money were multiplied;

The thin soil was overlaid with centers for trade.

In a square patch betwixt the garden and the city

The restful and the restless men would meet

From time to time in hopes of building

A common life together.  But they disagreed

From the very start, and the passing years

Brought only more rancor.  So the tillers

Bid the traders a peaceful Farewell

And went home to arrange their affairs

In accord with their new place in the world.

But the city folk felt in this

A grave sin against

An abstract Unity

And Liberty

And Destiny.

They fell with all their might upon

The farming folk.  For five years

They endured their Gethsemane

And their Golgotha until one April

They came down from the cross

All beaten and battered and lay down

In a courthouse room that looked

To become their tomb.  But they did not die.

And so neither did they know resurrection -

Life unending and strength unyielding.

They bargained instead with the Northmen

For balms made with their scientific

Necromancy which did keep feebly

Alive their mortal bodies,

But decay went on within their spirits.

All the while, the alchemists

Were smashing anything with a bit

Of tradition left within:

The extended family,

Christianity,

A pen of poultry.

Only dying brings new life,

Everlasting, invincible life.

Only baptism into the death of Christ,

Living His life of self-emptying,

A life only and always for the sake of others,

Free of worldly fear and desire

Which lead to all manner of greed and anger.

The South must crawl at last from the sick bed

At Appomattox into the tomb.

She must ‘set up the grave in the house’ - forever.

She must go on dying every day

That she might know resurrection every moment.

Then the Light of the Glory of God

That shines in the face of Jesus Christ

Will also shine from her folk,

Rays of Light bursting forth

From ‘the decomposing wall’.

Then all things around them will be renewed,

Granting an eternal value to all that they make and do.

But first they must die.