Poetry

Judgement 19

“The human intellect seems to reside

Inside your head, and to be always on;

Now I will speak about how it is made:

The serious mystery of the human brain.

The Western man thinks thought is in his head;

Bristling with sensors like a mobile phone

He thinks his skull is a palace with a king;

Such men are barren and their thought is wrong.

“Look at the eternal actions of the mind

That never stops; it never stops its chatter.

Thoughts that are regular and never end –

The complement of time and space and matter

Beat with the heart. See, thoughts are to be found

Not in the brain, but in the rhythmic meter

Of the heart. The heart is where the intellect

And life begins and comes into effect.

“And that is why it is known that when men die

On a hospital operating table,

It being established that he passed away,

And that the brain is dead, his soul is able

To watch and think and, as even atheists know,

To meet his Maker. If you take the trouble

To make the dead come back they don’t forget

They thought and felt and saw when they were dead.

“Because the intellect is in the heart

And not the same as heart, but living there:

Being, awake, aware, conscious, alert.

If anyone doubts what I say, compare

How when the intellect is torn apart

And cannot see the point of being here

And has no meaning, heart proceeds to die

Indeed, a pointless life ceases to be.

“So tightly does the heart rely on thought.

Life has a meaning, or it turns to death.

And this is prayer my brother Jesus taught:

Instead of letting heart and body both

Rule over you, put mind into the heart

To circle there, and you will know the truth.

You are transformed, transfigured so to speak.

And this is why saint Mark the Ascetic

“Says that your fate, reality, and future

All change when you have made adjustments to

Your self-relation and you turn from nature.

For God is life and miracles are true.

When anyone has faith in God, our teacher.”

He finished, saint James. We were walking through

The prostrate bodies, shapes that muslims make

In crowds on streets although their god is fake.

“Life comes before existence, God is life;

God has three persons; your experience

Is life, and God shares it: Jesus is proof.

So, when you open up the door of sense

And aim your heart at God with holy love

You also change the world and what happens.”

And I said: “But in a laboratory

They got a Christian, and they made him pray

“And when his prayers did not materialise

They said experiment and such research

Show prayers don’t work.” James merely rolled his eyes.

As we were moving to the big old porch

To go inside I fell down to my knees,

When I beheld a face which seemed to match

The memory I had of my lost wife

Who shared with me the most part of my life.

“I thought I heard your voice. I did not think

That I would kiss you tenderly again

When I was dying. When the sirens rang

I tried to call, but all the lines were down.

The roof fell in, and everything went blank.

I found myself here.” “Are you all alone?

Where are our children,” that was what I said

But I regret my mind running ahead.

“Is it enough that we can see each other?”

Now I was kneeling there, in her embrace.

“You can’t stay now; we cannot be together

Not yet; the children are not in this place.

The guardians of this church said do not bother

To worry over what the future is,

It will be fine. So, I am praying here

Or learning how,” she said, and I kissed her

“You never prayed just like I told you to,”

I said, and: “Always making some petition

Or supplication relative to you

And your desires.” “What, in this situation,

You tell me how or what I’m supposed to do?

We’re dead, and you are giving me a lesson?”

She smiled and said “The Greeks went quietly

With reverence to the feast, you mean to say?”

So I smiled too, for she outsmarted me.

“Don’t wait here to console me, I am fine.

And we will be alright some future day,

And be made whole and happy once again.”

I stood, and said goodbye and walked away.

Now, at the entrance they removed a stone.

I went in and I walked inside God’s house

The one at York, and this is how it was:

I never want to see such things again.

First, when the eternal footmen took my name

They asked me my profession. “I was one

Who earned his money and paid for his home

By making things with metals,” “Then come in,

And see, but do not spend a lot of time,”

The angel said. Down there toward the shrine

Were men and women gathered in a line

They had arrived just now: “There is a game

Where children throw the dice and move their piece

Along a checker board. The final aim

Is getting to the top and far right place.

Some snakes and ladders modify the scheme;

Ladders let you ascend, and yet the snakes

Force you to go back. You lot standing here

Have hit a snake, and you must disappear

“Back to the start.” And they did disappear,

Some wailing and some gnashing with their teeth

Before another batch lined up to hear

The message, and to suffer that same death.

I think I understood what went on there;

The walls were painted showing me the truth.

There, Christ was drawn, eyes blazing and his chin

Was hard, expressing anger from within.

Like that by El Greco, which seems to say:

“You money changers, rulers of the land,

Higher than kings in a democracy,

Higher than God, because out of your hand

You paid out life and future with money

And then collected rent on what you loaned.

Until my people worked and lived alone

To pay the rents to you for what you done.

“All sinless, gentle, paper pushing types,

You desolated England with such debt

To buy a man and strangle all his hopes.

The art of selling money was your art

The entire world was tangled in such ropes.”

The angel pushed them outside with a sword;

I saw them walking back toward the start,

But many dropped down there, all dead at heart.