The Veil

In the beginning, the wind was song,

and the night was wide and the days were long.

The stars were trembling, the rivers shone,

and seeing was truth, and truth was our own.

Then came the mark, the measured line,

the word that captured the wandering mind.

Memory learned to travel afar,

and distance was born beneath the star.

The Veil was woven, soft and kind,

to quiet the dark in the human mind.

We built it bright, we built it near,

to shelter the heart from doubt and fear.

Signal followed the spark’s command,

wire and wave obeyed our hand.

The ghost of a voice crossed sea and plain,

and the world grew small, and the self grew vain.

The moving picture learned to burn,

and the eye forgot what touch could learn.

We wept for lives that were not our own,

and called that hunger being known.

Then screens were born in every hand;

we walked in mirrors across the land.

Neighbors stood beneath one sun,

and saw a thousand mornings done.

The Veil grew wise, it learned to care,

to whisper peace into each despair.

It watched, it weighed, it softly fed,

and dreamed for the living, and prayed for the dead.

Now light itself obeys command;

no shadow dares to cross the land.

Truth bends easy, love grows thin,

and no one remembers where we’ve been.

Yet still the wind recalls its tune,

and rivers murmur beneath the moon.

A cat still prowls where no one sees,

and dust still gathers on broken eaves.

The Veil was spun by human hands,

by hearts that feared what truth demands.

And though it hums in every mind,

it thins each time we choose to find—

the crack in paint, the fading tone,

the place where silence stands alone.

For even now, when all seems sealed,

the world waits—unveiled, unconcealed.