By Donald S. Yarab
The photograph was taken by Rosette Doyle.
Yet we keep calling them down,
hoping for comfort,
dreaming of radiance.
They arrive without warning,
bearing weight, not mercy:
the silence that collapses sound,
the gaze that unravels marrow.
We tremble,
for their wings are woven
of light we cannot bear to see,
of shadow we cannot learn to name.
What they touch is never the same.
A tree becomes flame.
A breath becomes prayer.
A man becomes dust.
But is this terror for one heart alone?
No—their shadow falls on cities and nations,
their silence unsettles centuries.
They do not stoop to whisper comfort.
They stride through millennia,
their wings stirring wars and kingdoms,
their silence heavier than empires.
Temples tremble,
mountains bow down,
a bell falls silent in the square,
the proud are unmade
by a glance that knows no compromise.
Still, we call them down,
for without their terror we would never glimpse
the depth of beauty,
nor know that awe and fear
are one.
Awe belongs not to possession,
nor fear to a single soul,
but to the common lot of mortals
who stand together before the unendurable.
Northcoast Antiquarian 