Poetry

Judgement 4

The barrel shaped man, strong and overweight

Who works at digging and tarmacking roads

With his fat hands and head can contemplate

And transcend to love beyond the clouds

When his attention lingers on the sight

Of his young daughter. He recalls her moods

Her lovely hair and face, her gentle voice

Such loveliness alone makes him rejoice.

So there were many people in that room

Who without passion aimed their contemplation

Toward the Virgin. As at Walsingham

There is a chapel decked out in the fashion

Of Mary’s house at Nazareth where you came

To see her through the window in a vision;

Just so she was; to me she seemed to say:

‘You could bear God, if you would be like me.’

I tried to force a man here, a man there,

To talk with me, or planetate about.

Now I have seen the colour of my hair

Turn brown to grey in only one year flat;

The subterranean terrifying fear

Of losing my kids was the cause of that.

So I am not surprised that all these people

Refused to leave Mary and her son’s temple.

I strolled about, preparing to exit

Attempting to avoid their lowered heads.

And then a voice rose among the prostrate.

“Hang on a minute! Hearken to my words.

Do you know that Henry, the fourth Lord Herbert,

Of Chirbury, one you heard of at Cadets?

The founder of your regiment, the one

Who died on active service at the Boyne?”

So I said: “I did not know how you died.”

“The Irish of James Second captured me,

But I forget the details,” he replied.

I glanced toward the Christ child and Mary,

Embarrassed to disclose what was inside

And to discuss the Royal Welch openly,

But he continued: “I care more for this,

How our infantry, with Lord Cornwallis

“Were never beaten in the American War,

And had more battle honours on their Colours

Than other regiments.” “Why are you here?”

I said when he had ended his discourse,

And he said: “Every day, all through the year

It’s Christmas now. And though I was, of course,

A Christian man through all my previous life

Back there we scorned her, calling her ‘God’s wife’

“And, for a barren passion’s sake, despised

The holy family and Christ Jesus’ mother.

So now I worship, having been reprised.”

I thought on this, and then I asked him whether

The son and mother are equally praised

When she herself spoke, thus: “They lost their Father,

And me, too, and the Son, then the English soul

Degenerated to nothing at all.

“Some humans made experiments with mice.

They put four pairs of rodents in a maze

With pools of fresh water, and bowls of spice,

And sweet food; but the they boarded up the doors

So that the creatures did not have the space

Or means of leaving that utopian house.

The stop watch then began: they underwent

The pathway of that dark experiment.

“Because they cannot escape from the castle

They eat, and breed, and live, and never leave.

But nature comes, with its mortar and pestle

And it commands that they will not survive.

How? First the male mice turn homosexual.

And then the females forget about love

And hate and turn to eat their little ones,

Until no young or old creature remains.

“My Son and I, his mother, are the door

The way to escape and eternity.

Not in another universe, but here.

In body and in patient good virtue.

Please learn to love without corrupt desire

The good and the dispassionate beauty.

Care of the children is care of the race

Essential, fated, fixed like the fixed stars.

“When I, God’s mother, saw the human race

In England, where they used to love me more,

I saw them flee me that sometime did seek,

With naked foot stalking in my chamber,

Who used to use ceremony and grace

Of outward order signifying law.

For, outward symbols of patience and power

Bring inward force of the never-ending year.

“Honour my son, in ritual and calm,

In loyalty and silence of the heart.

How else is it that my Byzantium,

When atheist Rome wretchedly fell apart,

Survived unless the people had become

To be eternal by a temporal art?

Remember me,” she said, “perform the rite.”

She finished talking and withdrew from sight.

I wanted to pick up where I had left

The conversation with the Colonel.

But could not find him. Then, uncannily moved

I wondered in my mind at how it fell,

That what is most essential is most loved,

So, how a woman’s body above all

Is beautiful the more useful it is

To bring forth children who live after us.

“If you remain here, after many years,

You will not be confirmed in understanding,

But wonder more and more,” said a soft voice,

“The mystery of God’s childhood is unending.

As our own birth is. I am that James Joyce

Of Ulysses and Bloom’s ten years of wandering

To find his son again, when his boy died.

Let me explain my meaning there,” he said.

But I said: “With that book you meant to show

How Godly and how godlike people are.

How fertile of invention, and how so

Integrally attached to each other.”

And that master: “Yes. Some have noticed how

Bloom is hermaphrodite. I do despair

To think that my book gave fuel to hell fire,

The unnatural burning of a sick desire.”