Nathrangking

Poem # 31                                                            

      Premonition?

From the east unforgiving tempests ascend to tower over and subjugate the fragile world of mortal flesh. Diana in her garb flees from glade to glade upon feet swift and yet in comparison to these winds hardly moving at all. The avenger is torn from the midst of battle and left broken in the depths of the dessicated sea where Chrybdis died. Jove on high calls the might of the heavens to hold fast this storm that no deity commanded. Its shackles shatter, sending forth shrapnel that spills golden blood. From below the dead tremble and cry out as though to mourn over the carnage that is even felt in the realm of those who have been damned. Plutus can hide nowhere when these storms pull his kingdom up from its very roots. Cities of humanity crumble and shout the most awful of dirges. Words that none hear spin about in air choked by the debris and ruination of every realm. Beasts who can run no further let out their final cries as they wait for this unnatural destruction to do its work. Minerva and Janus step into the heart of the splintered world as an honor guard and watch even the sisters that weave, measure, and cut the fate of all succumb to these wrathful voices. Shields form in their hands as war begins. Hypnos leans his hands out into the very soul of the spirit that struck even the most primordial beings. Everything slows for Justita. Her left hand clutches the fasces of her office and smites the destructive winds with blows that send uncontrolled tremors throughout all of reality. In her right a flame that pierces the body, mind, and spirit of time itself ignites the form of a horrific thing that has consumed the forms of both the divine and mundane. How it howls as it burns away in a maelstrom of never ending heat and eternal light. When it calms and the wreckage of so many broken realms settle the fog of divine slumber lifts from Jupiter. He wakes and gazes into the night that has just begun. 

Poem # 30

                                     Remembrance of  Hues

Creatures shatter the walls of onyx that surround the halls of mortal thought and the hunting grounds of vengeful deities. Blazing pillars that bend in shadow bear bestial busts upon their crowns. They stare hungrily out upon the realm piercing city walls and invading the calm of the land of Hypnos. Mountains, forests, valleys, and glens branded with power beyond the skill of even the imaginations of terrestrial souls hide hunters that stalk the realm. Taut silence consumes any who would venture into this profanely sacred place. Boar legged men and women whose serpentine eyes and leonine heads carry the tools of rage that pacify worlds. Blades drip with the blood of fallen myriad and drown regions that are now forever fallow. Shattered armies who are prostrated before temples aflame speak no more forbidden blasphemies. Bread resides now in the realm of the divine and no longer in the realm of those who can end. Dawn approaches with its blinding light and instantly dispels the most vile of shrouds. Running shadows race with the winds pushing them across accursed and demanding earth. Primordials arise and are swept aside by the power of the chariot of the rising sun. Flame washes away scars that have penetrated the heart of the world and inflicted the most twisting of agonies. Into the day all step forward to see all that they were always denied. Hues so soft bring forth orchards of cherry and golden apples as the very sun itself. Groves of emerald bursting forth in ways previously regarded as legend fill the mouths of those whose chains glitter in ruins. From their throats erupt songs that drown their jailers as they fade from where they fell. Those monsters that first removed the manacles of night are lost in mystery. Pillars once bent ascend into the aether as eyes that once saw now truly see daylight once more.

This is not the sort of thing that I normally do, but I was inspired by @Silva to step outside my comfort zone this year. I owe him thanks for inspiring me and providing much food for thought.

Today is Yom Hashoah or as it is called in English Israel's day of remembrance for the Holocaust. The Nazis YS"Z did many horrific things. One of these was stripping people of their names and attempting to reduce them to something so base as to be unrecognizable. They wanted them to lose something, but what was it that they wanted to achieve? 

 What are names? Some might view names as identity. This is who I am boiled down to a couple of syllables or words. Some might say a name is power. You can classify the world by way of this power. Yet others may claim a name is a burden as there tends to be a lot of baggage that comes with names. They can tell the history of a person and reveal so many hidden aspects. Perhaps then we should view names as a testament of history both personal and familial.

However, I would like to propose something else entirely. I preface by saying this is no place to be judging or analyzing the truth behind religious customs. In Judaism there are many fascinating customs surrounding names. I would like to highlight two. Among the Jews who descend from many parts of Europe there is a custom that one of the ways that babies are named is to choose a name or a part of one that comes from a family member who had passed away. This is a form of memory that preserves the memory of those who are no longer with us and keeps their legacies alive long after they have gone. Is a name then tied to memory as well? A second is a wider custom among most religious Jews. When people fall ill or suffer some other terrible tragedy a name is added to them such as Chaim meaning life for a male or Chaya which is a derivative of Chaim for a female. There is the belief that a name impacts your reality. It defines who you are in a very real way. It might be said that your name could represent a certain reality or even life itself.

It might be safe to say that names are complex and not to be taken lightly. If it is any of these things then the Nazis sought to take identity, power, history, memory, and life itself from millions of helpless victims. We too often lose sight of the significance and power of having a name. Maybe every now and then we can take a moment and reflect on how lucky we are and remember those who will not be. 

At this moment I must again give credit to @Silva for informing me of that which I did not know. I now take from his post and defer to his powerful words. "Some time ago, a teacher introduced me a website called Illuminate (https://www.illuminatethepast.org/). Essentially, each Yom Hashoah, they have people around the world light virtual candles in honor of someone who died in the Holocaust. The website provides a name and a little about the person when possible. It doesn't capture all the nuances of a name, all the slight implications and meanings so innate to the person and those who lived around them. How can it? But it's something, a start, and that's worth something.
 

If you feel comfortable doing so, take a minute, light a candle, remember a name for those who cannot. As the days go by and you hear of recent events, please pause for a moment and recognize the fortune of your own world and immediate surroundings; they might not be ideal, but they could be much, much worse. Recognize the power of the names in your life and never think it your right to deprive another person of their own. As many a fictional character has said, names have power; don't take it for granted."

To bear a name is to bear something so powerfully precious. Let us never take that for granted and forget.