Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961): “Pipe Creek Farm”

As I stand on the edge of a vision that I thought I once knew
of green, rolling landscapes that pass on by like a thousand more Thursdays,
I can almost see him walking along the fields of this tucked away farm
on this long forgotten road—the sounds in the trees the only remnant left
to whisper the story of a nation enchanted by a testimony that was never politically correct.

Perhaps that was the first woe.

Only man could create torment and call it ideology—can evil be good, can good be evil?
What is truth, after all? Yet here where the blood still runs red and the golden sun casts long shadows on this state of stillness, on these barns that embrace, I realize that there really is nothing left that is new. And that the time for understanding histories has also passed.

Which is none other than the second woe.

So while I wander along this precipice, I consider what is there now to know? That he loved this land? That he understood when a pendulum shifts this way and that? That seasons change, and there is a time to be barren and a time to testify? That fences fall down, that fields become overgrown, that memories distort? I guess that should be our reminder:

There is a third woe, and it promises to come quickly.