Poetry

Apocalypse 6

The ash tree’s fingers point toward the sky

The round black buds at the branch ends point to heaven

I said to Jesus: “Tell me, master, why

We did not see this mighty thing when living

Why did this earth pole act invisibly?”

And him to me: “Things that you must believe in

Dominate men by terror and attraction

They order and shape experience and action.

“You see them now. Those little demons there

That in the Gospels were, and recognised

Me as God, if you read that book with care.

This tree is that tree that my Father raised

In paradise and ordered men beware

To eat from it. Some people theorised

That it was in the paradise of Eden

But the world heart could as well be found in London.

“There is no need for it now, they pull it down.”

And when the thing had finally been cut

And burned and pulled, it fell at length, job done.

I will not tell the noise, the fear, the rout

Of chaos and of weeping I saw then.

But what I can describe is, at the root

Were four horses each tethered on a long rope

They made a break for it, but soon gave up.

And four immortal and angelic things

Were stood by them, idling. We walked a bit,

And I said: “By my fear, and by their wings

I would call them angels.” Then I was quiet.

We started walking. There were many rings

Of hell when Dante made his way through it,

Each of them dedicated to a sin

But here it was open, without horizon.

We walked across vast fields for quite a while

With people working, tilling, hunched and bent,

Each man hunched over with a simple tool

Like a peasant pestering an ungenerous land

As it would be when nuclear winds prevail

When crops won’t grow under the human hand.

And so I asked: “Is it that we have come

Back to the stone age, is it now that time?”

My lord told me: “We have progressed in years

Back to the first age of community

The age of farming and its pioneers.

But these ones here you see in front of you

Are men like you, raised up and survivors

To spoil the land and curse it through and through,

These aren’t the ghosts of neo-stone age men;

They sow with salt, saying ‘never again’.”

“They’re throwing salt across the fertile earth?”

“They’re rolling up creation as it was

Ten thousand years ago to give it death.”

Thus he, and I, shaking my head, said this:

“Who are they, first, who having regained breath

Have been instructed thus to infertilise?

And second, is this punishment or what?

To make them ruin what gives them their food?”

“That type of food, like time measured by clocks,

Is no use here, no use now, that is all past.

And the people labouring here are Bolsheviks,

Those types who, like the sentimentalist

Expect the love, and expect all the kicks -

Or, like gamblers, entirely dishonest,

Or like liars in the law, they play the game

And hope to win without effort, lacking shame.

“They always sowed salt in the earth before

And hoped for ease and played at being gods.

Let them do so now, according to that law

They wrote down and they read in those foul words

Of Marx and Engels, and a thousand more.

The game here, for these gamblers, has good odds

I have revealed the true rules of creation,

So there is no need for their revolution.”

We moved on further in the dark and night

“I do not eat, but still my body grows tired.

I’m overwhelmed and like a child of eight

I’m drowsy and confused by what you’ve said

And what I’ve learned”, and he: “Then we will sit.

To grow crops and grasses to make your bread

And make the ground wealthy needs burned tree barks.

Potash or else potassium really works.”

And I: “The tree’s skin also cures illness,

Nature gave good for every human pain.

So when I ate, before I came to this,

I used to try to eat from fruit and grain,

From earth we came. And don’t forget fungus

And moulds, and mushrooms, which with trees are twain

And cure the body, so experiment

To find the truth and health, and to invent.”

I grew sedate, and thought about the scheme

In which God brought the Communists to play,

As if they were a village cricket team

Composed of single men in unity

As if collectively they had a name

A corporation’s personality.

They had been dragged up from the muddy grave

To work together as they had in life.

A dozen gross of broken stones and bricks

Were being covered by those gloomy ones

Who cast their poison over their own tracks

By working round us. “Yes is my response”,

“Yes what?” I said, “What? What?” And he: “Relax

I hear your thoughts, and such of your questions

Which bear upon the groups of labourers,

England gave birth to social groups like theirs.

“And teams and clubs, and businesses down there

Constitute their responsibility

Here in the other world.” I was aware

Of two or three men not so far from me

Talking together of the recent war;

How passion blurred the sense of reality

And made men blunt and finally obtuse.

The two old men were tired like me of course.

One was that famous careful messenger

Who made America the greatest power

But to whose words no statesman would give ear

About Russia. His interlocutor

Was of like mind, both old, the one Kissenger

The other Noam Chomsky, both in the sear

And both ignored by the passionate stupid race

Which ruled as one big stupid populace.

I sat and heard, their voices like a stream

Of water heard when walking through a forest

A gentle sound of purity from a dream.

They got up, moving on. “Enough of rest,

We’ll go as well,” my leader took my arm,

And listening to their talk, I got the jist;

They talked of Palamas, Orthodox saint

Who manfully defended his homeland.

“I mean,” Kissenger said, “When they defend,

By arguing the case for being right,

They argue and stand firm and prove the point,

Three pillars of theology. But to fight

Was necessary too. The Hellespont

Was no protection against a Crusade.

The fight was old, as old as Troy and Greece,

Belief and unbelief fighting for peace.”

Behind us, far away across the plains

The tree gave up the ghost as I suppose;

The four horses sprang up and shook their manes

And stamped the ground and breathed and made a noise;

The angels had untied them, and at once

Rider and horse set off and went by us.

“Do not forget, despite what you will see,

It all leads to God, and being the Son, with me.”