Storm Warning

by Lynda Maraby

Silence
and the dropping curtain
of a late December

Herod’s forces
regroup
for one last offensive
from a horizon
obscured.

Ensconced in tinsel
and tradition,
we scurry
to whatever
beckons

hoping for inward grace,
searching for outward signs,
distracted

by all the pretty lights.

A note from the poet:

I wrote this poem a long time ago, but reworked it as “Storm Warning” at the outset of the Gulf War, when some were predicting an easy and quick victory. I was especially appalled at the notion that we could make a first strike. Although the leadership of Iraq was corrupt, that did not seem like enough reason to enter into a such a conflict. The propaganda was full of the same old patriotic claptrap about keeping us safe, but we were about to commit lives and resources to something so thinly veiled that oil dereks and dollar signs were visible just under the surface.

The reference to Herod came later, as I reflected on the nature of politically generated conflict in general. I think the reference to the slaughter of the innocents in the New Testament was a similar kind of comment (perhaps comparing the actions of Rome against its seized territories to those of Pharoah in Exodus).  It seems have not learned much since then except how to kill faster and more efficiently. We certainly have not learned how to control those political leaders who think they can do whatever they like in the name of protecting the common good.  I say “we” because all are culpable (and, as the poem implies, too easily hoodwinked).

This poem was published in 2007 in Simul: Lutheran Voices in Poetry. Maitland, FL, Xulon Press.

Lynda Maraby is a member of Salem Congregation.