Between Despair and Hope

I terrified her — my hand was struck still!

I frightened her... alarmed her... colored her world with black clouds...

I said to her: O my sister, young girl trailing in sweet play with graceful abandon — do you feel safe from tomorrow? Do you feel secure for the dreams of visions wrapped in the brightest mantle? Do you rest content in a world of splendor and serenity? — when our courtyard has grown dark with the loss of our mother: she who used to ward off from us the specters of fear and loneliness, gathering us, by the inspiration of her motherhood, into hidden worlds where safety and happiness roamed free; she who would shed tears if we fell ill and live on longing if we were away, whose ribs would tremble with gladness if we succeeded and whose whole being would smile with light if we were happy — and today she lies in her grave... alone... still... asleep.

And we are here alone, strangers, our hearts trembling with anguish, the wings of despair walking through our souls. Can you, O broken-winged one, soar in the airs of the eagles, and rise into the sky of the birds of prey, with no fear taking hold of you, and no despair creeping toward your spirit?

And our tomorrow, sister of my life — do you not fear our tomorrow?

And we are here in the springtime of our youth, our hearts breaking upon the frail grave that folded within it the most precious thing existence ever bestowed, wrenched away by death.

Do you feel safe from tomorrow? — when we have nothing in life but an anguished father, who hides his deep groans and humors our pale smiles with words brimming with love and gestures filled with tenderness, so that his pain cuts into our hearts above our own pain, and our spirits weep for his sorrow above our own sorrow; and we look longingly at his pained glances, searching in them for the glances of our mother, and for their beloved, lost meanings...

Do you feel safe from tomorrow? — when we have no one to ward off from our tormented souls the evil of people and the selfishness of their passions; for she has gone to her eternity, she who used to draw people and us together, who weighed their aims against our aims, and explained to us the paths of our life in the shadows of their valley, so that we leaned toward no dread and inclined toward no despair...

And my sister raised her face, and I was appalled at the fear that crowded into her eyes and rushed to her cheeks; and my spirit, which had frightened her, went wild within my ribs, and I felt my heart breaking over the torment of the young orphan. So I rose to embrace her, and to melt what had welled up of my own pains into her pain...

And I said to her: O my sister, you who are sunk in the world of your girlhood in a heavy sorrow — will your soul not shine with hope? — hope, which the hand of the Lord fashioned in the most radiant of creation, for it is the noblest of colored rays, the peer of jasmine in gladness and in hue?

Do you fear tomorrow? — when hope is a living spring from which our life drinks at every moment, and by which the dreams of our youth are gladdened, however stubbornly age presses upon us, or however harshly life deals with us!

Do you fear tomorrow — or is it death that terrifies you?

This wide world — nothing builds it but the leavings of annihilation, and nothing wills its raising but the fangs of death... We walk through our world upon the remains of generations, to build the edifice of immortality for the souls looking out from the balcony of life — just as our mother takes her part, yielding her beloved remains to the grains of dust which the flowers and the roses drink up, to flow down into the eyes of light as colored sparkle and wondrous purity.

Does death frighten you? — when in our human hearts lies the cruelty of forgetting?

Here are the graves before us: ask them how many eyes weep for them today, and how many sorrowing hearts call out to them? Then ask time about them tomorrow. Is there any but time to cure their sickness, to stay the flood of their tears — and to laugh at us and at them!