When Jesus Christ is not at the center
of a nation, a heart, a people—beauty goes.

Not in a quiet fading,
but in a sudden hush,
as when the last note of a hymn
is swallowed by the closing of the door.

The squares grow loud with empty voices,
statues turn their marble faces away,
rivers forget the names of bridges,
and children learn to spell despair
before they learn to spell their own names.

Chaos does not arrive with trumpets.
It slips in wearing the clothes of progress,
whispering that freedom is the absence of kneeling.
It rearranges the furniture of the soul
until nothing fits,
until the heart is a house
with all the windows painted black.

Civilizations collapse
not with a bang,
but with a shrug.
One generation forgets the song,
the next forgets there ever was a song,
and the stones that once cried out
fall silent beneath ivy and excuses.

Yet even in the ruin
a single seed remains—
small, stubborn,
refusing to believe
that darkness has the final word.

It waits
for the return of the Center,
for the day when someone
dares again to say His name
like a match struck in an empty room.

Then beauty will come back,
not earned,
but given—
like morning after the longest night.