Source and Destination

I am from but a thought,
A whisper in the dark,
No resistance to the whim of my creation.
I am from a potter’s wheel,
my earthly form worked
beneath heavenly hands,
my being but soft clay, though more precious than gold.
I am from the earth itself-
My soul is mud and my will is stone.
Every man here is like I, of a stubborn world.

I am from the shiftings of conflict,
wars fought for my brood and I
I am placed upon an altar of hate
and raised by its architect-
The blackness of his heart instilled in my chest,
the fruit of his fury becomes the wine I imbibe.
I am from a battlefront, with no army behind me and no
captain to follow-
My enemy everything else.

I am from a broken land,
with no food to eat and no one to feed,
With no friends to trust but the abyss in my breast,
I am from a nation divided,
each man their own king and no men to serve them;
each man a tyrant and at war with his own.

I am from an innocence corrupted,
a battered child bloodied and bruised,
clutching a rusted blade drenched in black ichor.
I am from the hand that resides in that child’s grip-
The hand of a great man betrayed
I am from a perfect soul’s willing sacrifice,
I am from a loving friend who laid down all his earthly
being in my place
            And I am from a new beginning, one that was granted
to me despite where I had been...
            ... and where I go, it matters only who you journeyed with.

Kenneth Stocking