Radiant Beams

With practice kids bend beams of light to burn their names in cardboard
     Excited glee when smoke they see, their patient work rewarded.
           So now my path leads on into the beams converging sizzle
                When tumor, patience, skill and light
                     All meet there in the middle.

The welder’s heat can cut or build, its use lays out its course –
     Electron beam finds ground and streams with ergonomic force.
          All this is fine if you are not the cardboard or the puddle
                I think the point is going to find
                    My soul right in the muddle –

For on the left are doctors fair, their skills and actions ready
     And in the right with prayers bright the vigil’s watch is steady.
          When viewed as line graph left and right
               Are weak for want of power
                    But bend them on an angle graph
                         Their freedom’s in an hour.

The problem comes not when the flow of life is outward routed
     The vertex stands as starting point, no zero-sum is touted.
           But turn it round, and now those flows
                  Of vectors to maturity
                       Reverse direction towards a burn
                            Of light-refining purity.

The beams are harmless of themselves which ever way they flow
     But crossed, the vertex point awaits some patience and a soul –

The left demand a faith in science and man’s almighty power,
     The right demands faith in His touch, and health within the hour.
          But neither side condones the truth the other side holds dear
                 So both continue on their ways – though burning vertex fear.

Then comes a day for those like me who left and right arms hold,
     There’s glint in eyes as both sides rise – the stakes -- refiners’ gold.
           I smile and walk into the fire
                They think a cataclysm
                     But they forget that death to both
                          Was buried in Baptism.

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