97

What perfect lovers! How wise! How sweet and delightful! A bare point marks warning, indicates high volume without content. “We enjoyed you,” the woman said to her mother's killer. What's the mark for that? A mark is not a symbol, like a flag, but an invitation to act, or pause, or stop. We advise against exclamations as too full of sentiment, preferring full stops, or semis. Yet “take down that flag!” marks time; stop history, revise and reclaim it. To forgive is to mark time as release, leave the burden of hate to himself alone. To forgive is to stick a pin in the balloon, pull air into one's lungs and breathe. Let him who is without breath know what it means to have it. Let air be the mark of solace we cannot see or hear past the still opening door of the church.

--21 June 2015