Poetry

Judgement 26

“I will create this place for you to live,

To stay here for a while,” is what I heard.

I went out with him, wanting to observe;

But as when mist descends in a thick cloud

You cannot even see your own feet move

When going on some dark and country road,

So, there was nothing, except in the distance

A point of gathered matter with no radiance.

Six days had passed as I had counted them

And there was nothing, but the radiation

Of energy which knocks electrons from

Your atoms so they suffer separation.

Like hair falls from the head beneath the comb.

Then in a giant short illumination

In which new things appeared in silhouette

I saw my gentle guide start to create.

In that white heat of work he set me down

In Chester, by the walls at the North Gate

Where the canal runs ‘neath the road to town.

By the theatre, the square, and the market,

The bars and shops as they have always been.

I was amazed, and did not hesitate,

But went down there to the Cathedral close.

Thousands of other people were with us.

“Is this for me, alone? How can this be?

It must be an hallucinatory place,”

I said, and he replied: “Noumenally

It is completely real; but it appears

Phenomenally not the same for me

Or for these others in their separate spheres.”

“I’m home again,” I said, “You’ve brought me home.”

And he: “We’re only here for a short time.”

There were a lot of people going in

St Werburgh’s church, the great ones of our race;

Elizabeth the First, who was the Queen

When England was established in its peace.

A pious wealthy land as it was then,

Yet other elite Christians filled the place.

“It’s not for me alone this town is here

But everybody sees what they desire.”

I said that. He said this: “Yet it is real.

For God does not create in dreams for sighs;

I’m here with you, but with all these as well.

But each man sees things with his finite eyes.

Let’s go to your home, and prepare a meal.”

I do not tell you all the many ways

My graceful town afforded us to take.

There is a needle where men at the stake

Were burned, and that is where our steps were led;

Just there the house was, by river Dee

Above the flood plain: there the house was stood.

“I miss my wife,” I said, “Quite consciously

And uncontrollably. Now she is dead

Is it forbidden to desire to see

Or to caress her, or to find out whether

She knows the promises we made together?

“Is that impossible or is it wrong?

A man is not complete without his wife.

Right to the point of death the two belong

Together, like those knights with sword and glove

And helmet for a pillow who lie long

In marble tombs, lie also with their love,

In parish churches. Is intimacy

Forbidden now between her soul and me?”

“It’s not enough for you,” he said and turned,

“To be alive with God?” Now we had come

To the door, the threshold, where the bushes leaned

And gave some shelter to the living room;

The kitchen where the antique boiler burned;

And there the table, all of it the same.

Some food was there and so we sat and ate,

And then my Lord smiled with gentle regret.

“Existence wasn’t good enough for you.

Don’t think I mean to condemn you alone.

The world rejected me. Did I have to die

To prove I loved you? I loved everyone.

But they reject me, and go their own way.

Mostly into complete oblivion,

Forgetfulness, unwilling to beseech

Although I held out with a giant reach.

“I died to demonstrate I need you, once.

That, I, God’s Son, only require your faith

So you could understand all existence

In stillness of me and my Father, both.

But hardly anyone made a response

Rather rejecting me and choosing death.

Why did I make this, my beloved creation,

To see men hate me, showing no compunction?

“Today, I go down with it in twilight:

The going down of the Spirit and the Son.”

So I said: “But why did you first create,

Then let the cosmos, this collection,

To let it fail and let it fall apart?

And now you say you’ll have to die again?”

He said: “How can the Son who built the world

Survive without the world that he has ruled?

“’My Father’, or ‘Our Father’ is relative.

God does not need a Son, he is perfect.”

An awful gloom descended from above

The necessity of cause and then effect:

That my distraction and my faulty love

Would cause the death of God in actual fact.

“But why did you allow us to transgress?”

I cried. And he: “You had freedom of choice.

“You all engaged in laying waste the Earth.”

How desolate I felt I cannot tell you.

He went outside, the garden underneath

A fragile night. “Did everyone betray you?”

I asked him. He replied: “Your future path,

Is to write down a poem of great value,

As Homer used to write for normal men

And Virgil poet of the citizen

“Of homeland, princes, men fighting and bold,

And freely sing it as the poets of Wales

Enjoy complete freedom, as we are told.

Words to collect, music that never fails,

Words of the country as it was of old,

Noble and comely things the mind recalls

Because they never will return again.”

“Will I survive to do that?” I began,

And he: “How this reminds me of the garden,

Where I was taken to be put in gaol.”

And now, I must request the reader’s pardon,

To break the narrative. To learn it all

To learn the whole lot, you must please read on;

Another poem will resume this tale.

Now I beseech God to have mercy now

Have mercy on us Lord for what we do.