Violence cracks our world,

leaves lives black and blue

emptier than when day broke,

leaves lives numb and days grey

Shadows crawl stealthily,

silently blotting the beauty

that our eyes can only see

by the sun’s bright rays

Darkness is like a shroud,

clothing our dying senses

too poisoned to see value

in life or how gaping death is

Hope seems like a dream

in the inky night, intangible,

unreal, a delusive phantom we’re

weary of being told is substance

Faster and swifter, now,

the shadows come, thrusting

our world into the chaos of darkness,

we are unable to feel, unable to heal

Lives are bleeding out,

much faster and swifter, now,

running across thirsty ground,

fracturing families and dividing men

Swifter and faster than

eye can see, light shoots across

the night, like a bullet’s flash—

light dispels darkness in an instant

It comes unexpectedly,

like hope revived, alive and

real to hold to, no longer a ghost,

but now an Anchor for battered souls

Light shines in the night,

and the darkness cannot cover it,

cannot understand, cannot hold out,

so the shadows flee, like paper-thin dreams

Slowly, slowly, now,

men begin to understand, to see,

to apprehend truth—they are set free,

and they begin to heal, begin again to feel

Cracks allow the light

to shine through—lives black

and blue are healed, made new,

as Light and Hope overflow thirsty souls