Places 27: Malice toward None

In 1970, when divorce, PTDS after traumatic violence (intervening to stop an attempted murder), the deaths of my dad and both grandmas and other inexplicable events and significant losses all hit me within eighteen months, I crumbled. At one darkly threatening moment, I feared losing total touch with my mind’s hold on objective reality. I never did; God intervened. With Malice toward None reflects that time. The first stanza questions the source of mental pain and suffering. The next stanza describes God’s amazing supernatural intervention and my recovery.

With Malice toward None

Who tried to fry my brain,
gaze into my head,
craze memory’s vision,
rattle my gray cells with lightening,
shoot lies like fire through my mind,
scream doubt to every feeling fiber
cased within my skull?
Who caused my skin to crawl with fear
and tremble?
Who would erase a soul from being bright?
Kill life?
Dull hope to death with pain?

Light came first.
One electric charge
of heavenly energy
was sent from New Jerusalem
to live on earth in me.
Then winds began to blow
soft, gentle winds broke up clouds of pain
brought hope for rain,
cleared the air of torment,
set memories free
with restored creativity.
Waters poured to wash out dirt,
flush out doubt,
dissolve seduction’s poisoned gas
rinse away all death’s decay.

My enemies were gone.
I woke to a new day,
and buried old, cold shrouds of earth
I was cloaked in glory’s-garments
to rise up in a new birth.

Hot fires from God’s own heart of love
melted hatred’s steel traps,
consumed lie’s pain.

A Friend, all-kindness, took my hand,
coaxed nerves to hope and trust,
taught cells to laugh again.