After Shocks

The blaze in the night sky was gone, faded to sparkless­ness. We were not ready. We needed more of the full light, our jour­ney incom­plete, the path torturous.

We made our sac­ri­fices. In the end, we could not per­suade and it faded com­pletely from our sky.

Many were lost on that journey.

Our lead­ers over­turned and sent away by those who did survive.

Now we have mon­u­ments to our ordeal. We have mem­o­ries of those gone and we have sto­ries of lead­ers fail­ing, the results of fail­ure, the results of too few nights bright on jour­neys rough and tumbled.

Our sur­vival, never per­fected, never cer­tain, its ten­u­ous nature made clear to us on one jour­ney across one dif­fi­cult ground with one light faded when it was needed most.

Word Counts — Today: 0 | Jan­u­ary: 930 | 2010: 930