epilogue, Lamentations 5

Jeremiah’s lament is the Lord God’s soft voice. It is soft and personal for me. Just me this day. His voice calls to me, and I call back,

19 “You, Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.’

Laments are global, judgemental and overflowing. In their birthings and life nothing else can be. Nothing can be heard or felt; be personal and general; seen or be imagined. Laments exist as ‘whys’ without heard responses,

20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?

This is how my, how Jeremiah’s voice speaking as the people in Jerusalem, and how life laments end: with unspoken and unheard and unfelt ‘whys.’ Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ ends with his ‘the rest is silence.”
After speaking all his thoughts, changes, actions and pauses, Hamlet rests in his life, his lament. This is Hamlet’s lament; silence and self- silenced. His overflow has ceased. His rest is silence. He rests.
Rest.

Tags: a final lament, epilogue, Hamlet, rest