TOBIN JAMES MUELLER
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Evil
(based on an historical event, Auschwitz, Germany, 1942)


One stroke past midnight,
in a stilted shack bent by the weight of so many Jews,
a collection of rabbis brought their God to trial
and found Him guilty of crimes beyond belief.

How many centuries had gone by?
How many millennia? How many
lives and prayers and good intentions? How many?

Culminating at this place,
Auschwitz.

They condemned their God to death,
finding no rational way to justify His inaction
in the face of such evil.

And so they killed Him.

As they adjourned,
a prayer was offered,
as was the custom
at the end of all such proceedings,
and all present joined in this mysterious amen.

And on the next day
they, in turn, where killed.
A christian's revenge: The 20th Century Crusade.

Why so many gods absolved?
Why so many men and women?
Why is it so hard to believe
that evil exists
even within our dreams of the divine?

Our need sends forgiveness out
even to a universe that does not care.

Perhaps forgiveness is what we seek
behind that masked and unseeable face of real belief;
forgiveness for living in these naked, human skins
that so masterfully define our mortal limits.


 

Evil © 1998 by Tobin James Mueller
"Ash" published by ArtsForge Press.
All rights reserved.