Saturday, November 14, 2009

I saw a woman the other day
Lying on the ground.
The gun she used was at her feet
The blood was all around.

Her hair, a gory halo
Around her shattered head,
She clung feebly to her fading life
When only moments before, she'd wished herself dead.

People were crying all around
But somehow amidst the panic
I felt the world slow down and stop
The horrid scene went silent.

Tears came not into my eyes
Though I felt my heart stop beating
The feeling that enveloped me
Was poignant but quite fleeting.

I knew that I was in the presence
Of God's own deathly angels
Though she still clung to a life
That was intolerably painful.

They were there to guide her
To a place undoubtedly more peaceful
And in that moment I felt her pain,
The emotional, not the physical.

I prayed for her soul, not her death or her life
Not even for those she was leaving behind.
Most of all I prayed that in the moment of truth
At that very last second she had not changed her mind.