You, you through your shining, painless, uninvaded eyes;
How did you see?
Past a mist of pain so smothering it was impossible to breath in its midst.
How did you see?
Through a massive sludge of hatred so thick, it clung and tugged until everything trying to pass through it became a part of it.
How did you see?
Into a vast, black emptiness that ran deeper and deeper until it reached a dungeon of nothingness; a nothingness so consuming the only life able to exist there was the rodents who dredged filth and contaminated all that surrounded them.
How did you see?
Yet you saw. There' hiding under the filth, less noticeable than the tiniest star on a bright starry night, was a minute speck of light, fighting to stay lit among the stench and bile.
How did you see?
It was so weary from running, shaking with terror at the prospect of death that was such a part of its being.
How did you see?
You pursued the spec like the sun chases a ray that tries to run under a maple tree on a bright summer afternoon, never quite able to be separate.
How did you see?
The spec was drawn to the brilliance and intensity of your stare.
It grew like a ray of sunlight peeping through a sliver of hope, filling the emptiness with light so radiant, it fought to permeate the sludge and the mist.
How did you see?
Once radiance started, it glowed into everything around it.
It emanated freshness and warmth, killing the rodents, fumigating the filth and stench; producing light so bright, even I could see.
By Tammy Stromko, 2004
How did you see?
Past a mist of pain so smothering it was impossible to breath in its midst.
How did you see?
Through a massive sludge of hatred so thick, it clung and tugged until everything trying to pass through it became a part of it.
How did you see?
Into a vast, black emptiness that ran deeper and deeper until it reached a dungeon of nothingness; a nothingness so consuming the only life able to exist there was the rodents who dredged filth and contaminated all that surrounded them.
How did you see?
Yet you saw. There' hiding under the filth, less noticeable than the tiniest star on a bright starry night, was a minute speck of light, fighting to stay lit among the stench and bile.
How did you see?
It was so weary from running, shaking with terror at the prospect of death that was such a part of its being.
How did you see?
You pursued the spec like the sun chases a ray that tries to run under a maple tree on a bright summer afternoon, never quite able to be separate.
How did you see?
The spec was drawn to the brilliance and intensity of your stare.
It grew like a ray of sunlight peeping through a sliver of hope, filling the emptiness with light so radiant, it fought to permeate the sludge and the mist.
How did you see?
Once radiance started, it glowed into everything around it.
It emanated freshness and warmth, killing the rodents, fumigating the filth and stench; producing light so bright, even I could see.
By Tammy Stromko, 2004
