A thrill runs through them –
swarming in the darkness cast by the night sky –
as a man steps to the microphone
And harangues..
A moment before they were a hundred lives
with a thousand cares
milling about in momentary association.
A moment later they are a seething oneness
with two hundred eyes
but a single vision that is somehow
still blinded.

It takes just a moment,
the tiniest sliver of time,
no longer than a spark takes
to ignite a blaze.
With it they blaze,
their murmurs become chants,
their chants become roars,
their roars become silence
of the most thunderous kind
full of intent
empty of craft
finding meaning in their meaningless
taking shape in their formlessness.

Through it all their leader
provides their words
massages their emotions.
validates their prejudices
In charge but not in control
he is just another expression
another organ
of the dark spirit animating their shouts
which fears the light
but revels in the fire
and loves to see it consume.

A will emerges in the crowd
Not the will of the leader
or of the people
or of any person
but the Will of generations
of a hungry jealous impulse
born of starving days,
of freezing nights,
of countless unformed terrors
of millennia of slights real or projected
of infinite loves offered and rejected
of all the individual scars borne in common
with their parents and their parents’ parents
and even unto the first generation.

This Will emerges from the crowd
diffusing from their pores,
their mouths, their eyes,
and looks upon the fire that blazes still
the center of attention yet curiously
unheeded.
The Will looks upon the leader
calling out the slogans
stoking the crowd.
The Will looks upon the crowd
Feeding the leader with their adulation
Feeding the fire with their anger and fear
Feeding the darkness with their tainted light
The Will looks upon this
small patch of world
and deciding it is good
returns Itself to slumber
knowing Its time has not yet come

But it will

again.


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