I was wrong.  I thought maybe a return en masse to faith, given the evidence of past plagues.  I understand now that faith only comes later on.  To the survivors.  The vocabulary of the blessed is nowhere to be found in the inner circle of destruction.   When the breath is urgent and knots grip the corners of the belly, when you hear your heart, its deep and urgent bass, frightening that it’s always been there, that it might cease to be.  There is no room for other thoughts.  You have stepped down from the computer room to the basement, to where reptiles once lived and scurried in the dark.  To cling to the branch of life, you must first notice the strength of the trees through the window.  You must grasp the beauty, really, of survival.  For the first time you must soften your dogma to let the nature of the outside world sink in.
 
 
jam20