Living Tree Poetry

The evening is still and perfect
hushed, but for a bird
or a singing cricket,
breaking the silence.

Unearthly,
this silence which,
like a funeral shroud
has fallen.

Has laid its blanket wide,
that any sound
from man or beast
seems out of place.

A smudge has marred the landscape.
A black mark
not like this silver rising moon,
against the fading apricot of sky,

but more like,
a pen that’s run amok
on a painting
beyond price.

The sacrilege
of which,
we stand aghast,
and feel the black pour into the soul.

But out of this silence might emerge,
a disquiet,
a ground-swell of outrage
and holy discontent –

At how God, in His temple
has once more been defiled,
and God in His people
struck and maimed.

Yes, we can see the smudge
in this night, still and perfect,
like a rent in the canvas
of a landscape.

That we’re not sure can now,
or ever, be repaired –
this defeat we feel, common to the
loss of innocence.

But we remember love,
and how each act of cowardly violence
can bring it out,
multiply it for good.

How the wave of hate,
can yet be pushed back,
by a love which grows in increments
until it floods the land.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry

15 March 2019
NZ’s first Terror Attack
Dark Day