Earthmaker viewed the sculptured dignity

Of man, God-like and strident, President

Of everything that was, content to be

God’s intimate and only earthen friend.

The three embraced in that primeval glen.

And then God walked away, his Singer too.

Hate came—discord—they never met again.

The new man aged and died and dying grew

A race of doubtful, death-owned sickly men.

And every child received the planet’s scar

And wept for love to come and reign. And then

To heal hate-sickened life both wide and far.

“We’re naked!” cried the new men in their shame, (they really were)

A race of piteous things who had no name.

They died absurdly whimpering for life.

They probed their sin for rationality.

Self murdered self in endless hopeless strife

And holiness slept with indecency.

All birth was but the prelude unto death

And every cradle swung above a grave.

The sun made weary trips from east to west,

Time found no shore, and culture screamed and raved.

The world, in peaceless orbits, sped along

And waited for the Singer and his song.

VIII

It is always much more difficult to sing when the audience has turned its back.

The Singer ceased.

The Ancient Star-Song slept.

“You know the final verse?” his mother asked.

“I know it all,” he answered back. “But I’ll not sing it here. I’ll wait till I am on the wall. Then alone the melody will fall upon thick ears.”

“They will not like the final verse,” she said.

“They will not like it, for its music is beyond their empty days and makes them trade their littleness for life.”

“The self of every singer of the song must die to know its music?”

“They all must die, and ever does the self die hard. It screams and begs in pity not to go. Nor can it bear to let the Father-Spirit own the soul.”

He turned the thoughts methodically within his mind then spoke again, “Mother, I shall sing the song while I move out to seek more singers who like me are quite content to sing, then die.”

She knew that he was right, but found it hard to talk of joyous life and painful death at the same time. How odd the song born on Earthmaker’s breath should lead his only Troubadour to death.

“I cannot bear to see you die. Let all

The world go by. Don’t sing upon the wall.

At least don’t sing the hell-bound ancient curse.

If you must sing of life leave off the final verse.”

“I go,” he said. “God give me strength to sing upon the wall—the Great Walled City of the Ancient King.”

He turned.

She cried.

“Leave off the final verse and not upon the wall.”

He kissed her.

“I can’t ignore the Father-Spirit’s call

So I will sing it there, and I will sing it all.”

IX

A healthy child is somehow very much like God. A hurting child, his son.