roses will fly away

roses will fly away


much is made of the deplorable condition of the world and her peoples

by every generation lucky enough to have succeeded their forebears.


and like every generation before us, we resist change with all the

ardour we can muster, often deciding to hate others as the agents

of the change we abhor.


and for us whose very recent memories of times of madness

and hatred have shown with awful clarity what is yet to come,

there can be no rest, not now.


and as we quake with fear we rest assured of our destruction

in anticipation of evil times, as we wait and watch the folly of

events unfold before us.


until the last lonely rose opens her luscious folds, to attract with

sublime scent we, who will no longer care if she lives or dies;

and then, petal by caustic petal she will fly away, never again to

be seen by eyes who thirst for beauty. and that will be the last

that change will have to do with us.

the freedom to ask why

the freedom to ask why


as I look back upon all that befell me before

I managed my escape, I am filled with a sense

of gratitude and wonder that I survived intact.


my childhood was filled with mixed messages.

Jesus said to forgive one’s enemies and turn the

other cheek when struck. army soldiers were all

heroes. those who refused to follow orders to kill

enemies or die trying were contemptible cowards.


if our leaders declared war against their ideological

enemies in distant lands it was my duty to defend

my homeland by going to those far away places

and killing the hated others if and when I could.


I was taught to hate and fear those who were

different than me, especially if their skin colour

was dark or their race was different than mine.


I was also taught a benign hatred of all those

who believed in different gods and practised

different rituals than my people did. I was

told to pity them because they didn’t have the

love of a real god and wouldn’t be saved

from damnation and eternal suffering in hell.


my torturous escape began at the age of nine; when

I understood that the adults in my life were becoming

uncomfortable, and sometimes even angry, when I

asked questions they couldn’t answer, especially if

their lame words about faith being its own reward

made me persist with yet another why or two.


I knew something was seriously wrong about the

stories I’d been told when those whys were met

with attempts to frighten me with visions of the

neverending eternal torments that I would suffer

in the hottest hell imaginable because of god’s anger

that I dared to question what everyone knew was

true because it was written as the word of god.


oddly, the question that seemed to make them the

most angry was the one about whether Jesus would

kill an enemy in war because his commanders told

him to; and if he refused would he be labelled a

filthy coward who had dishonoured his country?


the freedom to ask why is the most precious freedom

you or I will ever know. instead of conforming to

societal norms of belief, allowing important questions

to be buried in the hazy ideals of non-confrontational

acceptance, isn’t it better to risk conformity in an

honest quest for knowledge and understanding?


belief unquestioned can never be a noble idea that

brings one total peace of mind. there will always be

questions unanswered because the unknowns in life

so far outweigh the few things we can hope to trust.