Poetry

Apocalypse 30

If you can work with signs and follow traces

Riddle me this, the meaning of the work:

I had walked many miles with my Lord Jesus,

Each step winding up Being further back

Toward the point where time and space arises.

I saw the world, and then, the world grew dark

I could not see, or hear, or touch, nor feel

And yet my mind still saw the beautiful.

Not our precursor animals which lived

In generations and went straight to man

Those apes and mammals I saw de-evolved

As I went back in time. All those were gone.

And all the resurrected ones who craved

To run the race with me and fairly win

I could not find their traces any more

I asked my Lord: ‘Will I too die down here?’

Some boys can’t sit and be taught things at school.

They cannot read, or crack the special code

Of letters forming words. Our age is cruel

Such boys are drugged and told that they are bad

Teachers and doctors say that they are ill

Dyslexic or they suffer ADD.

The boys itch to be out doing and making

With other children, working like a boy king.

So I, remembering my time in youth

And how the world was lovely in my life,

Confined now in the last moments of death

Completely clueless knew I'd had enough.

I know that in that period of the earth

Reptiles were here and there and other stuff,

And crocodiles, cold things that hatch from eggs

That do not suckle on their mother’s dugs.

I saw them in my mind; they do not need

For warmth, nor care for heat and light so much.

The horses and the army of the dead

Who resurrected to go on this march,

They were all gone. And so, to Christ I said:

‘And why should I continue with my search?’

And he replied, which I had not expected,

Because I could not see, and thought him departed:

‘The work of death and negativity

Contributes to the building of the kingdom.

And we, by walking onward, build it, see?’

His voice might have been mine, coming at random

Inside my inner ears; and to my inner eye.

‘Our Father set himself the task to find them

Who chose to love him despite all existence

And to reward their love and their persistence.’

It was his voice, I know now, but at that time

I could not know for sure, what with the silence.

He said: ‘In Greek lands under Turkokratia

And when the foreign Soviets ruled the Russians

God loved the people who still did baptism

And turned their hatred on worldly conditions.

They turned their intellects toward the heights

Deciding not to worship new false gods.

‘In general, you cannot go astray

If you encourage God to live in you

And use the holy sacraments and pray

And violently hate the enemy

Who makes this difficult in any way.’

I heard, and wondered if it could be true

That in that darkness I was not alone

That state of blindness dead cold as a stone.

According to St John’s book, Revelation,

The last scroll to be opened was the plague,

And worst of plagues, of which there had been ten

In Exodus if you consult the page

Where Moses and his brother, wise Aron,

Persuade the Egyptian king to fear God’s rage,

This plague was worst of all things: black despair,

The disease where the sufferer is not there.

Despair is that event wherein you lose

Your self. ‘Is that what I am suffering?’

I said, ‘What is the cure for this disease?’

He did not answer. So I sang a song,

I heard it once, greatest of mysteries:

I said: ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ within my being,

And ‘Son of God, have mercy on me.’ Then:

‘A sinner,’ breathing out and breathing in.

I said it many times within my mind:

‘Lord,’ which means maker of the universe,

And ‘Jesus’ which means human of my kind,

And ‘Christ’ which says that he was sent for us,

Then ‘Son of God’, by which we understand

That he is of God’s family; and thus

I spoke the words to call for him to hear

And ‘have mercy on me’ which means come near

And make me pure and strong as God is strong.

And add this phrase, descriptive of your state:

‘A sinner.’ We were soon going along

Aware of where I was and with my sight,

And inwardly I carried on saying

Those words, whatever else went on outside.

But of this miracle I say no more

But concentrate on other things I saw.

The land around us was all slime and heat

Without a track, but traces I could see

Of others by the footprints of their feet

All heading eastward. Coming back our way

Was one I knew from pictures, though I thought

I never would have met him till that day.

‘You wrote “England: An Elegy”, Roger,

A book I read to learn and take pleasure.

‘I wrote you from the Tidworth garrison

The two of us were neighbours in Wiltshire.

I thank you dearly for the fine lesson

You gave us in your books. Is this failure,

This end of ages situation

A Christian failure to prevent the war?’

I asked him that, and he replied, softly,

Smiling with his red hair all flecked with grey:

‘We had been in the catacombs in Britain,

And could not speak for God nor let God’s voice

Be heard. We did not fail. Because it was written

The world would end. We had got our notice.

And sheltering and hiding is a pattern

Which I had learned in Czech, too. Now this place

Affords a catacomb and fallout shelter

So walk with me, and get out of the weather.’

So Scruton led us to a place to rest

Where other outcasts, men attuned to hear

And tell the truth, were going through the test

That I was undergoing, like Peter

That Hitchens, brother of the atheist.

‘This is a very hard race. The winner

Will get the laurels and the winner’s prize,’

He said to me, all smiling with his eyes.