Tristan Robert Lange

The Song You Taught Me

I looked at you with wide eyes,

You were my universe.

My entire world

My ecosystem

My sanctuary

My solace

My own

Mine.

Not possessively,

But you were

Where

belonged.

If I was strong,

It was

You.

You taught me

Right from wrong,

To always sing justice’s song,

To be like Moses,

No matter what the world poses,

To stay in the Lord—strong.

To know when it doesn’t add up

And to never play along;

To never join the throng,

But to say true

In resisting

Wrong.

But now

It seems

All that

Goes

saddens me to no end that you

now seem to be singing a differ-

ent song. For the first time in my

entire life, I finally understand

what it was like to be Moses

coming down off of Mt. Horeb,

all aglow in the presence of the

LORD, to find that his very own

had deserted the very ways they

had raised him up to lead them in.

A mixture of tears and fire that

combine in the most transcendent

and transformative ways, righteous

anger exploding out at the blasphemous

ending of all that was ever put into sacred stone.

This, my beloved, is where I now find myself standing.

Forever my duty to love—to that duty am I a slave—

But love is a sword that cuts

To the tune of truth.

It will not, cannot

be deceived.

It stands

firm

and

If you cringe at my singing, know it is the song you taught me.