Letting in a Little Light

An awful day.  No way to make it otherwise.  Once again, the irrational violence of some self-righteous villain has marred an otherwise lovely Spring afternoon, a harmless and happy celebration ruined, innocent people wrecked and maimed and killed, presumably in retaliation for other people, innocent and otherwise but elsewhere wrecked and maimed and killed.  Whatever and whoever's and wherever, violence begetting violence, war, cultural or real, and religious and or political fanaticism, I do not not for a moment doubt, justifying the horror to someone, somewhere.

I can not think but that the urge to such resort bespeaks neither conviction nor desperation so much as a deliberate evil; not just to take the lives of strangers but to deny life itself, not just to disorder or undo or shock, not even just to be somehow revenged, but to negate the very light of such a day, to blot out the sky, sew the air with metal and scatter the ground with blood.  Whatever this is, this is not war, but deliberate murder.  No one in Boston was standing by a murderer when this happened, except those who might unknowingly have stood next to the man or men who did this.  No one was there to celebrate any victory but the personal, or to support any effort but that of the runners, or to prove anything but to themselves.  No one responsible will apologize for the violence done today.  There was no miscalculation, no mistake.  There is no policy in this act to be criticized, no evident agenda but terror.  No one can justify it, at least to me, with any history, statistic or statement of faith.  If and when we ever know who did this or why, let them say whatever they like and be damned.  Let better people than me forgive them.  Let anyone who already thinks to excuse or explain the perpetrator's or perpetrators' actions do so to someone else.  I'll have none of it. I don't believe in gods or monsters and neither did this today.  Someone did this horrible thing, some one man or men did this outrageous, senseless violence today, and what he or they did was evil, inexcusable, stupid.  Damn it.

It is too horrible.  I've nothing to say in the face of it but to mourn with the victims, wish the survivors a quick recovery, support those who would fight against such barbarities, and wish those who even now are mobilizing to understand and apprehend the person or persons responsible, good speed.

 All I can do otherwise is keep as close as I can tonight to the light, concentrate for my own sanity on just that small measure of joy that I hope, with the help of my friends to add tomorrow to glorious conflagration of the season's renewal; so let us have flowers from the gardens of our friends!  Let us go on and read poetry aloud as we planned, sing songs and tell jokes, drink wine and yes, laugh.  No disrespect to the tragedy today, quite the opposite, I feel.  Today was taken from all of us by some enemy or enemies of joy, of drunkenness and guitars, food, conviviality, wit and pleasure.  Someone, alone or in conspiracy darkened today for all of us.  So tomorrow, in our admittedly insignificant way, we still plan to let in a little more light.  If that's all we can manage, so be it.  A little light is better than none.

The darkness be damned.