Life After Death

You want to believe
But faith is not enough
For your rational, scholarly mind,
And so you spend your evenings
Searching through ancient texts
For the meaning of life,
Surrounded and infused
With the souls of the dead.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Children, Still

So many wars of religion,
Large and small,
Between countries,
Between people,
Fought over words,
Ideas,
Symbols.

Our words,
Our ideas,
Our symbols,
All of it representative,
Pointing to that which has no form,
No individual vocabulary,
No contrived ideology,
No exclusive theology.

May we all find comfort and healing
In our decorated places of worship,
Our places of heaven
Where we all must cleanse our hearts,
Where we all are children, still.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Angelic

I used to think angels were perfect,
Unstained,
Untouched by human frailty,
Until,
In a low moment
An angel comforted me,
The kind of comfort only an angel could bring,
An angel who knows what it is to be human,
Who knows what it is to fall,
Then again rise.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Inside

Inside,
This is where heaven and hell reside,
Where propriety has scant power
To temper the onslaught of extremes,
Where rationality is fleeting,
And the soul, with its accumulations,
Is all.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Imaginary

If your paradise is an artifice of your own creation
Yet you believe you are in paradise,
Feel like you are in paradise,
Isn’t that just as good as imaginary love,
Imaginary love you believe is real,
That keeps you alive and dreaming,
Writing long love letters late at night,
Hoping, always hoping until the oxygen finally runs out?

Just because your heaven is a dream
Doesn’t mean you can’t live there.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved