
The Lord Gives, The Lord Takes Away
Dernière mise à jour : 2 nov. 2018
Just as Troilus’ ghost laughed at the littleness
of what preoccupied his earthly mind
My eyes captivated by the darkness of the night
catch the reflection of an indoor light
Will it come one day when intense suffering
will have metamorphosed into trifles and absurdities?
When the lit room behind and the feeble
glimmer ahead in darkness will be found inverted?
Will it come one day when my throat
will not be petrified, my heart frozen
nor my mind numbed?
When my soul has caught up with a body
tired of the loneliness and emptiness
provoked by the absence of all?
Just as Troilus’ ghost laughed at the triviality
and the transitory nature
of human concerns and desires,
Was this all a game of faith, testing our
ability to trust in promises that we
ideologically lived by and yet hadn’t
appropriated as our actual reality?
Was this all an opportunity for deconstruction
narratives, revisions and emendations,
as the storyline diverted from its initial angle?
Was this all a game of two cultures,
when gambling with the unknown
is spiced up by an overtly eager
temperament and an overthinking mind?
Just as Troilus’ ghost laughed at entangling
circumstances blinding the prospect of a realm
always delighting in its golden hour
How then face the master of time,
when too aware of one’s earthliness,
sand runs through one’s fingers as
soon as it touches one’s skin?
How then face what is to come when
the present and its meaninglessness
are too much to bear?
Was Sartre finally right, l’enfer c’est les autres?
How then embrace the blue without
tempering pain with escapism and distraction,
while praying alongside Herbert
“give one more thing, a grateful heart”?
Troilus’ ghost might as well have wept bitterly
in the night witnessing such
desolation paved by vanities
Whether with laughter or tears, I shall pronounce
in a shattered voice alongside Job:
The Lord gives,
The Lord takes away,
blessed be His name.
* * * * *
Dans ce poème, j’explore la réaction de Troilus (protagoniste du Troïlus et Criseyde de Geoffrey Chaucer) alors que son esprit monte au ciel et qu’il perçoit la vie sur terre de là-haut. Nos circonstances peuvent nous aveugler, nous cachant la vérité éternelle, la vérité que Dieu est amour, et qu’en lui il y a la plénitude, en lui nous pouvons être entier. Les émotions liées à nos circonstances peuvent être parfois écrasantes, mais comme tout ceux qui ont vécu avant nous ne cessent de nous témoigner, c’est une question de foi. En effet, ça concerne la façon dont nous répondant à nos propres circonstances par la foi.
