Poems and Rhymed prayers cover

Toward the sunriseTwilight falls, hope flees the heart.Temples collapse, things fall apartas day departs.Poisons black, embers red,yellow rage – lights mist and fade:dusk’s brewing shade.Sultry, brooding storm clouds break.Dark powers hurl forked lightning, shakethe night awake.Passions, staggering drunkenness.Chains, whips, stubborn mindlessness.Night’s heavy breath.Gloomy struggles, fights unrestrained.Broken hearts, limbs cramped, constrained –no end of pain.Vacant glitter, void grotesque.Strife, envy, toxic heaviness –the Snake’s bequest.Misunderstandings, venoms stirred.Quarreling brothers, confusion of words –minds are blurred.Hardened souls and bitter fears,prayers sent upward with fierce tears.Morning nears.Now hope glimmers through the dark.A faint beam meets us from afar:the morning star,while o’er the chaos of the night,burns with judging, saving lightthe sunshine bright.Illusions lift and disappear –gone at last all bonds, all fear:dawn breaks here.Oars swing in rhythm, ripples gleam.’Neath flower garlands, faces beamas sunlight streams.Peace smiles, and before our eyes,truth unites, joy purifies:God’s day draws nigh.Poisons yield like falling chains.Joy abounds, free and unfeigned.The Lord now reigns.Sannerz, spring 1923How Eberhard weathered the 1922 crisis on a personal level might bestbe guessed from this poem, according to his biographer, Markus Baum:“Eberhard was no superhero. The breakup of his community sapped hisstrength…For months, he fought attacks of self-doubt and depression. In hispoem ‘Toward the sunrise’ he describes the quarreling, poison, strife, andenvy he experienced. But in the eighth verse, he unexpectedly announces,‘Morning nears.’ It is a symbolic sunrise: truth breaks in; love is victorious.And by the poem’s end, he is stating emphatically, ‘The Lord now reigns.’ Itwas this certainty that kept him from falling into self-destructive brooding –a rock-like certainty that always won the day.”P O E M S & R H Y M E D P R A Y E R S:E B E R H A R D A R N O L D 49