He turned to the center idol: “Why did you take my son?”
In singsong sighs, the center idol answered: “You have heard it said:
> If the red slayer thinks he slays
> Or if the slain thinks he is slain
> They know not well the subtle ways
> I keep and pass and turn again.
Your son is not dead. You never had a son. You drew a line around a
cloud of atoms and qualities and divine fire, and called it a son. Now
each has dispersed in turn. In Baghdad, there is an oilman with a
nitrogen atom in his thymus that was once in your son’s parietal
cortex. In Belmopan, there is an orphan who has your son’s smile; in
Bratislava, a businessman with your son’s kind nature. In Bangkok
lives a very holy monk who just had a thought that nobody but he and
your son have ever thought before. Thus is it written:
> He is made one with Nature: there is heard
> His voice in all her music, from the moan
> Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;
> He is a presence to be felt and known
> In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
> Spreading itself wherever that Power may move
> Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
> Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
> Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
>
> The splendors of the firmament of time
> May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
> Like stars to their appointed height they climb
> And death is a low mist which cannot blot
> The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
> Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
> And love and life contend in it for what
> Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
> And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
