Two more moons pass through the bottleneck, and now that bright night light is rising up again.

Devastation is a complicated word.

By the source letters, it means waste-making has achieved a wasted state. The “de-” is an intensifier accentuating the vastness, “vast” being the thoracic core; the cognate-taproot of “waste.”

It’s natural and honest to feel devastated about the current state of our society and ourselves. It strains one’s eyes to see these harrowing developments as anything but a waste.

I’m holding on to the dual nature of “de-”: far enough down, up is the only direction available. That’s not to say upward momentum is guaranteed. Repair, after rupture, is not a promise that can be kept with hope alone.

That’s the other “de-,” “not.” “No” is a word so small you could come to believe it’s almost powerless against the external onslaughts and internal ennui working us hand-over-fist. Sadly, somehow, it’s true that the power of the shield can be less than the force of a dishonest thrust.

Not everything wasted can be unwasted. Not everything trusted but untrustworthy can be discerned and excised. There is much devastation to mourn. But: the meaning of the phrase “safety in numbers” may yet discover how many teeth it has. I, for one, will show my teeth.

A bottomless gullet of bad faith is not the only thing vast as the wind (knocked out, across desolate realms). It’s not the only thing vast as a people remembering who they are: at street level, eye-level, locking arms.

*

The other gloaming hour, the sky itself seemed to draw lines. Lines in the sand or lines in the air. I think there’s enough meaning in this world for most of it to be coincidence, most of it to be suggestion, much of it alert to scientific methods, but all of it (if you dig) wellspring-miraculous.

*

Fire tender fire. Encouragement to burn / invitation to stay. There go I but by the grace of fire. Here we are, each voice in a chorus. Devastated by events and revastated by the depths of the human heart.

Thanks to my friend Simon Paul Augustine, I’m reading the sermons of George MacDonald. In their embrace of infinite divine mercy, they’re beyond redemptive. Judged a heretic by his own congregation, his was an indomitable, inalienable faith. Why not sense and promote, among a deity’s perfections, perfect mercy? Infinite forgiveness! Which isn’t to say acknowledgment of damages doesn’t intercede. Myself, I adopt few willful beliefs, but today and tomorrow I believe this willfully: From within time, there is no knowable point of no return. Whether a triage nurse, a volunteer mendicant, or a kicker of rocks down a proud, destructive road, there are only turns at being: here / being: here for this.