I watched a movie last night (Last Flag) that was a poem, it had a surface and had a bottom many leagues deep.  And that bottom wouldn’t stay down, it had had to come up, and there were emotions and pain at all depths.  People die in war, as do and will first responders trying to help… and the survivors are not really survivors, until they can heal.  The pain of recovery and reconciliation yields to redemption and growth, if one fights through to get there.   I cried at the end of the movie, as the depth of the poetry came forth, and they framed it with a Bob Dylan song with lyrics so clearly about the end of everything, in a voice so beautifully strained and pained.

I don’t mean for this to be dark, and there is hope as he sings it is Not Dark Yet, and for this we must be sure that there is time for us to discover the murmur of a prayer.

Not Dark Yet
by Bob Dylan

Shadows are fallin’ and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep and time is runnin’ away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin’ what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

Well, I’ve been to London and I been to gay Paris
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of the world full of lies
I ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m movin’ but I’m standin’ still
Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.