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VI. ABBA*
I. Their time is up, the children need to go. The girls will leave their dolls behind, the boys the tricycles they ride; the children’s toys will be abandoned, one by one. We know what happens next, how evening breezes blow the children’s candles out as time destroys the games the children play, as time deploys tin soldiers on a chessboard, to and fro.
The children, too, are forced to shuffle to and fro like bishops, knights and rooks that fall when kings are checked. Although we aren’t sure we know what’s best, we do what grownups do — we pick the children up and put them all to bed — or can they play a little more?
*father
II. To bed — or can they play a little more? The children hate to go to bed, and so do we, afraid our dreams will ebb and flow all night without a sense of meaning or significance. A dozen seagulls soar above unceasing waves, while down below the surface of the sea, an undertow keeps pulling us — how can we reach the shore?
How can we reach the shore indeed? It seems the undercurrents push us far away before we have a chance to go explore the archipelago we’ve seen in dreams, although the darkness hasn’t vanquished day, although some daylight still remains before.
III. Although some daylight still remains before the darkness crowns itself, strong storm-winds blow and rattle every window pane. Although this house was built to last, we find the door is shaking and we hear the storm-winds roar as if a flood is coming soon. We know the walls are made of stone, but even so, we feel the quaking of the floor.
The wind. The rain. The cold. The children are afraid to sleep; how can we hope to hide our fears of things we can’t control which grow from hour to hour? Is there a single star that shines tonight, is there a moon outside? The children need to sleep. Fate’s rivers flow.
IV. The children need to sleep. Fate’s rivers flow and overflow their banks, as rapidly as time, as rapidly as destiny. If this is true, do children need to go to bed? Perhaps the dreams they’ll see will show them how to stay afloat. Perhaps if we adults will dream like them, we’ll also see what lies above us and what lies below.
Is this a game of chess? Is this a game at all? Perhaps it’s just a children’s song that children sing in dreams, for we don’t know its music or its words, which seem the same to adult ears. Our raft is pulled along so rapidly; swift currents never slow.
V. So rapidly — swift currents never slow and never halt. Like tempest winds that do not stop, fate’s rivers keep on flowing through the evening, through the night, and we don’t know what lies ahead. An oar could help us row our leaking raft ashore, where shadows who we barely see are running, racing to high ground, above the waterfalls below.
Elusive shadows keep on running, one by one, arriving where they haven’t been before; the past becomes the present for the shadows and for us — or do they run too rapidly? They reach time’s window in their racing pace — time’s window and time’s door.
VI. Their racing pace — time’s window and time’s door may close and shut in front of them, despite the efforts shadows make to outrun night, to outrun nightmares too. One, two, three, four— run faster, shadows, in the darkness or the swiftness of the rising rivers might engulf us all. Be careful now, for light is being quenched by rain and fate’s downpour.
So many things can’t be ignored — the storm that doesn’t end; the words which do not rhyme; the sea that keeps on crashing on the shore; the way that shadows in our dreams transform our sleep; how rapidly the gates of time start closing — even children can’t ignore.
VII. Start closing — even children can’t ignore how this and that have started closing: the box in which they store tin soldiers, dolls and blocks once used for building towers; the candy-store with licorice and lollypops; the door behind which shadows hide; old rusty locks whose keys are lost or missing; antique clocks no longer working, scattered on the floor.
What else has started closing? Pawns, rooks, kings, queens, bishops, knights; taxicabs, buses, cars; train stations; ports; an archipelago explored in dreams; the dreams themselves; the rings of Saturn, comets, Jupiter’s moons, Mars; a galaxy whose stars no longer glow.
VIII. A galaxy whose stars no longer glow has fallen from the sky, has fallen deep into fate’s rivers. We, who hoped to keep a vigil in its memory, don’t know exactly what to do: to point and show the world a hole where stars once shone? To creep along the ground and sigh? To cry, to weep? To help the children go where they must go?
Without the stars, how can the children see how clocks are being swept away by rain, by wind, by night. Everything that ticks, tocks, ticks, tocks, is silenced in the dark. Though we may try to stop the flood, we try in vain; the children learn fate’s rivers snatch all clocks.
IX. The children learn fate’s rivers snatch all clocks. How can I help the children, Abba, they won’t know if they should go to sleep or stay awake; the children will not know who knocks upon the door, nor will they know who locks it while they dream. Who locks it, Abba, say his name, I also want to know. The day is ending now, enclosed inside a box. “Enclosed inside a box, is time alive or dead?” “What happened to the clocks?” I hear a dozen shadows asking questions, I can hear them in the dusk. “Will we survive the night?” “Is water rising everywhere?” “Will time survive?” they ask a darkened sky.
X. “Will time survive?” they ask a darkened sky. Who’s asking questions now, the children or the shadows’ shadows, seeing how time’s door is being shut, is being locked. Am I supposed to find the answers here? But why is it so dark? With neither candles nor a match, I barely see the walls and floor; how can I find the spot where answers lie?
What happened to the moon, what happened to the stars? I know the sun is gone, the day enclosed inside a box. I knew the night to come was destined to be dark, but who decreed this dark? It’s hard to find one’s way bereft of moon, or stars, or any light.
XI. Bereft of moon or stars or any light, I barely see the house ahead — is there a fence that must be climbed, is there a stair to mount? What colors are its walls? Black? White? Blue? Purple? Yellow? Red? What should be bright as daylight is now dim. And everywhere I turn — right, left, up, down — I only hear the pounding, pounding, pounding of the night.
But do the children hear it, too? Or are they safe inside the house, as I have prayed for ever since the storm began, since clocks were swept away, since rain put out each star. Where are the children? Abba, I’m afraid they hear the ocean pounding on hard rocks.
XII. They hear the ocean pounding on hard rocks. Please help the children, Abba, help them so they will not hear the ocean further, though it keeps on pounding through the night. Who locks the door? Unlock it, please. Unlock the clocks before it is too late, and let them show the children when it’s safe for them to go outside to play with toys and building blocks.
Unlock the week, unlock the month and year, unlock the future, I — I am afraid that time is shutting down — unlock the sky so stars can start returning — I — I fear the children cannot play the games they played — O help me Abba, Abba, help me — I
XIII. O help me Abba, Abba, help me — I can hear the rising waters, hear the rain and wind, the pounding on the window pane, the pounding on the door. I fear the sky won’t find its stars again or nullify the darkness of this night. The hurricane grows stronger and the shadows pray in vain for it to stop, for it to cease and die.
What happened to the archipelago of dreams, each island green with trees, each tree ablaze with light? What happened to the light that shone before, the light I used to know? For I, aboard a raft adrift at sea — I’m frightened, Abba, frightened of the night.
XIV. I’m frightened, Abba, frightened of the night. Come closer, Abba, why are you so far away — as distant as a missing star, as distant as the absent moon? Despite the darkness, Abba, look, I sit and write these lines to you. Listen, the children are now crying, and the shadows, too. Unbar the door that keeps you out, and bring us light.
I hear a voice’s echo; listen to the echo, Abba: “All the children pray in vain tonight, their time is up.” I know you read the lines I write — but Abba, do you hear the words I hear: “They cannot stay, their time is up, the children need to go?”
XV. Their time is up, the children need to go to bed — or can they play a little more? Although some daylight still remains before the children need to sleep, fate’s rivers flow so rapidly, swift currents never slow their rushing pace; time’s window and time’s door start closing; even children can’t ignore a galaxy whose stars no longer glow.
The children learn fate’s rivers snatch all clocks. “Will time survive?” they ask a darkened sky bereft of moon or stars or any light; they hear the ocean pounding on hard rocks. O help me Abba, Abba help me, I — I’m frightened, Abba, frightened of the night. —Yakov Azriel |