Poetry

Judgement 3

If I ask the white muse to come along

Do not mistake this for an atheist hymn.

Ted Hughes and Robert Graves sang her a song,

Of her white island, where she inspired them.

Although they thought of Jesus and were wrong,

They knew the muse and visited her home.

Muse, don’t deny me some of your mercy

When I speak, now, in Christian poetry.

Rather, give beauty and the proper use

Of sensual sound and words for what I saw.

At the throne room of the universe I was,

The King and Queen of all the world were there:

A cave, a woman, a boy, at Christmas.

My instinct was to bow down low to her.

The ground was like the limestone of Yorkshire

When it is cracked and open to the air

And forms a pavement made of smooth grey rock

Where cracks have widened with ages of rain,

I noticed. Then the Lady gan to speak:

“You do not need to join the other men.

Do not prostrate yourself.” I turned to look.

And then returned my gaze toward the stone.

It was not masonry and block down there,

But the backs of other men composed that floor.

Each stone and paving slab was a pilgrim

So, I was not alone there, with the lady

In blue and red. She spoke: “This, the first room,

And you will not remain here, since you are ready,

To move on to the next in your own time.”

I realised I was stood on somebody

Whose head was down, whose haunches were on high;

But all of them were knelt down in this way.

I asked: “But is this real, are you Mary?

And are these people?” “It is as it was

In life, where moments in the memory

Mean so much, while the rest of time means less

As if the whole world were illusory

Beside the holy time which does not pass.

So, this our meeting, and our talk, is real

Though the surrounding chamber is banal.

“But what it means, and why you should not stay,

Ask any one of these ones at your feet.”

I walked around, bent down, so as to see

If I could recognise a pilgrim; but

There was no need: somebody shouted me.

“Is that an English voice that I just heard?”

And I: “I’m Welsh.” And he: “Your ancestry

Is all the same. I was Malus Catulus

Who drowned and took the seal with him at Cyprus

“With Richard Lion Heart on that crusade.

And after drowning, found myself in here,

Or, let us say, after the asteroid.

I passed destruction and that great nightmare,

Then, entering this cave, amazed I stood

And longed to understand and worship her,

The Fairy Queen, our Lady, our God’s mother

And laid me down, unable to go further.”

And I: “Your heirs are those they call Machel

Who lived in Cumbria at Krakenthorpe.

I know them.” Then he: “I know them as well.

I seem to have been here bent in this shape,

For many centuries and seen it all.

And yet, the time has not erased the hope

Of learning and of leaving, moving on.

It is as if a thousand years have gone,

“And yet sometimes as if no time has passed.”

He tried to turn his face toward my own,

But then determined to leave it hard pressed

Against the ground. “Hey, you, leave him alone,

And talk to me.” That’s how I was addressed,

By someone else there, obeisant and prone.

“I saw you,” he said, “in your early youth;

I watched you from this place, and that’s the truth.

“While loving her, with love that drives me mad,

Her, Lady, chief of saints, most glorious

Our most beloved modest divine maid.

They called me Jim, the singer of The Doors.

And I confess it freely, I have made

Extreme mistakes; more than other sinners.

And yet, I got to this place. You know how:

I saw the other side. I inspired you.”

I wanted to despise the Lizard King

As he had been. He died at twenty-seven,

A rebel and a man who did his thing

And nothing else. “How could I enter heaven?”

He said: “You look at me, you are wondering.

I know it. How did Jim come to believe in

The Lord and Christ, the Son, and then come here?”

I said: “Teach me the things I need to hear.”

So he began like this: “The two of us,

We were like mere hitchhikers on the earth

Like Mississippi Fred McDowell was,

Who cotton picked, and for what he was worth,

Who sang, and was a stranger otherwise.

And was forever poking at the hearth

To make the fire burn and come to life

Unsatisfied because life’s not enough.

“Now, when I died, I passed the trials of hell,

And, cursed myself for trying to be Christ.

For, as you know, you know it very well

We wanted to be Gods and loved Christ best.

He overcame death, and was king of all.

So, I being dead, I was free, and I passed

Through all the paths and trials in the end

While no hobgoblin and no foul fiend,

As Bunyan called them, stopped me. Not until

I came here, and the things really worth love,

Which I neglected and despised, befell.

They came to press on me, from up above

As it were. Just as Bunyan went to gaol

Composing in his cell: so I embrace,

In prison, things I once chose to despise.

“The inner force of nature is not seen.

Things stick together by electric bindings

Little electrons are the inbetween.

Now, copper wires, wound up in motor windings,

Have all those free electrons free within

When near a magnet, past our understandings,

Do move with an electromotive force:

A natural law - just one of them, of course.

“Just so, the absolute inner essence

Of human life and any life is this:

The logos, namely God, or love, which means,

The weak and innocent deserve the prize.

The widow, the orphaned child, finally wins

If God and you and I are the Logos.

The strong must undertake to love the weak

And beauty be the end of all hard work.

“Ah, these were easy rules for me to know.

I sang of them. But what is hard to see

Is, how traditional harsh things all go

To make love possible: so our country

Our family, our town, our Church, all do

The duty of protecting love alway.

The home, the hearth, the lintel, and the land

Must be defended, loved, you understand?”

And so, the poet told me what he learned

While meditating on that judgement floor.

“Who knows, the universe may not have burned,

If like St Peter, and St Paul, and more,

We’d gone up to the capital and turned

The atheist deadly leaders from their war

And ordered them to follow Christ instead.”

Then he fell silent, nothing further said.