Song of the Watchman

Forsooth, I thought a guard I was,
Beyond my means no challenger
But challenged by a questing mob,
With bricks and shards in ready hands,
To break me under heavy load
And cast me to the vicious teeth
Of dogs with mange and curling lips,
I break and leap from parapet
To fall upon the rocks of hope,
And gulls, they feast instead of hounds

Clad in the hues of gold and black,
Or so I thought, 'fore push (damned push!)
Came unto shove and painted me
Not gold, but yellow. "Heartless wretch!
You fail to guard from fallen-ness!"
What of my past? Of twenty-three
Who fell beneath courageous sword
And rose no more to threaten ye,
Does that not count? "Nay, verily!
Hast failed this once, your failure lasts."

Break, break, you fool! Now hope no more
For faith and courage lose their joy
And thankless life you treasured once
Now turns to dust before the horde
"The fraud holds watch! He let them in!"
Let what? The rumours? Poisoned tongues?
I speak the truth, but lies ye hold
Inside embittered hearts. Unseen,
The joyous song now turns to dust,
I break my heart upon a dream.

Brothers

I looked around today

At faces--bearded, smooth, intent

On one thing: sharing life with me

The men at the gate

This gate is my heart

And I wonder at my eyes

They never saw how blind they were until

    They stung

        And filled

            And dripped

I looked around today and missed

What I never knew I had

Gray

Young and naïve, armchair explorer,
Learning Chinese because Spanish was normal
Taller than most, and weaker than many,
But quick with a pen and a smile

Hair black like Raven's, fingers that flew,
Pigmented much like a midwinter snowflake
Played on a fiddle (though not by that name),
Wrote stories that featured real people

He was a guppy, a fine large-mouthed bass,
Raised on Fitzgerald and Brontë and Shakespeare
Who wanted to please, to be loved, to be needed,
And bought it all, hook, line, and sinker

Stories of hate, chock-full of lying,
Horrors and blood-bonds, back-biting Envy
He took up the knife because she said she'd done it
Used his own skin as a canvas

Embittered and frightened, texting past midnight,
Lying to parents he once thought were precious
The smiles were gone, of scars, there were many,
Traced by a second-hand blade

Then came the silence, week after week,
Talks with a clipboard, a beard, and a shrink
The "burying sickness," where secret hates hide,
Hope for a glimpse of the Raven

"I've seen both her hands, the scars don't exist,
No cross where her blood and her Envy did mix"
The veil, it is torn from the portrait of Gray,
And secret hates now turn aside

A card at the ball, "This came from her hand!"
The character with all the features of language
"She told me forever," he laughed to his date,
The wastebasket welcomed the note

Long years have passed, Raven has vanished
Her charms, they have ceased to beguile his head
And tears that once flowered in Dorian's heart,
Have forgotten, it seems, how to flow

A new dawn begins where once there was night,
A new life has bloomed in a once-sullen eye
A new name now dances on smiling lips,
A new heart now beats in his chest

"Forgive and forget," the old adage says,
Yet memory clings like a limpet, and though
Forgiveness is present, the matter is finished,
And Raven must find other skies

Mark

He drove a minivan.  Perhaps it wasn't the coolest car for a seventeen-year-old, by the world's standards, but then again, he was never much concerned with the world's standards.  Yet, somehow, he still managed to make that minivan cool. Sara Bareilles got to ride in that van. Her manager lamented that he couldn't find someone more professional, yet the van's driver was one of the most professional and respectful people you could ever hope to meet.  He was a guitarist who was also a bassist who was also a singer, and he did all these things well.  He was still just a boy, but in many ways he was already more a man than many thirty-year-olds.  He wasn't a gardener, yet he built greenhouses in Nicaragua.  He wasn't royalty, yet he had a Father greater than all the kings in all the ages of this earth.  He knew that, and it made him bold.  Not bold in an obnoxious, bellicose way, but bold in a quiet, unassuming, influential way.  This was a person who could change your life through one small conversation, whose smile instantly lit up a room, whose sense of humor made every interaction memorable.  This was a worship leader who was genuinely in love with his Savior, and whose life reflected that fact.  This was a son who placed his faith in a God unseen and encouraged all those around him to do the same.  He firmly believed in a future joy that would surpass all human understanding and expectation.  And now that joy, long hoped for, is finally his.  The fight has been fought, and the rest he longed for has been won.  Not by his strivings or his achievements, but by his Father's.  There is great rejoicing in Heaven this day for the son who has come home.

Goodbye, my brother and my friend.  You are sorely missed, but praise God that I will one day stand by your side and worship Him with you!  May we give Him praise for the extraordinary person He created, and for the short time He allowed us to know and love you.

Your life has touched so many others.  My prayer is that its memory will continue to bring Him glory.  I am so happy for you, Mark Rodriguez.  Sleep well, and one day I'll meet you in the clouds.