Poetry

Judgement 29

After the trial they stripped Christ of his robe

Then pushed him on a scaffold to be seen

And, after showing him before the mob,

They took him back to take away his skin,

To make him yet more naked. For that job

Batons and whips were used. But it’s all one.

Bereft of everything, he was empty.

So much we saw, and then we went away.

“To be like Christ means not thinking of Christ

You cannot think of God in any case.

Because he is the highest of the highest.

So, if you want to be like Lord Jesus,

You must be empty.” So spoke my youngest.

“Thinking of nothing, having nothing, is

The inner truth and meaning of the trial,”

She said this gaily, with a childish smile.

“For in that emptiness something can change.”

Our path led us out from the audience.

And I said: “Those who shoot straight on a range,

Fall silent and breath gently as they wince

And squeeze the trigger. Their silence is strange.

A kind of not knowing guides his actions

When the accomplished shot hits the bull’s eye

Thinking about it spoils the purity.

“And likewise, when they dance, women have grace

Because they do not think about their feet

About their arms and bodies or their place.

To think about it is to ruin it.”

My daughter, she was older now and wise.

The last time we had gone down Foregate Street

I carried her gratefully in my arms

To hold her close and keep her on my terms.

And I was happy, then. But many years

Had intervened, and many people, too

To end that. Now, my hand was holding hers

Though all the years were in between us two.

We made for home, in spite of disasters.

My son had grown as well, and yet the boy

Was not a child, ten years his sister’s senior

And he was talking, talking in this manner:

“All thoughts come from the heart.

Thought wabbles up like flame around a wick.

Thought always strolls around the untrained head.

It’s never quiet. On automatic.

Thoughts move around your conscious mind,” he said.

“The heart is the will, the thought source in the quick.

But, as dreams end when consciousness perceives

And looks upon the dream, and the dream leaves,

“Just so, when consciousness looks at the will

The will falls quiet, and then the thoughts depart.

The saints say, you should make the mind fall still

By putting consciousness inside the heart.

That vacuum is what the Holy Ghost will fill.

There is no nothing. Even the desert

Is something. Non-involvement in the world

Non-thinking and inaction is not void:

“The Holy Spirit fills the empty man.

It’s said, that a whole world is saved in time

When life is saved in one instance alone.

The entire world is gathered up in him.

The entire world is gathered in a man

And when he dies the whole world dies with him

As if he were God. And he truly is.

When the Holy Ghost has filled his consciousness.”

“You must instruct me later on,” I said,

“I cannot follow, yet. I am too slow.”

I wanted to explain to him, my lad,

And to the girl, a riddle. To wit, how

The last night of my life, alone, I had

Prayed to God’s mother, Mary, and although

I could have done so sooner, or daily

I had not. Yet, when I did, she heard me.

I asked her to look after both of them

Because I could not. My extremity

And impotence one night in our front room,

The last night of the world, had made me pray

And, now, the four of us were coming home.

That’s what I tried to tell my learned boy

But rather found the door and opened it

And went inside to sit down and to eat.

“Back there, in town, there’s something going on.

We did not stay to see Christ in his cell,”

I told my folks: “He suffers on his own.”

We ate and drank, and as the dark night fell

We talked, my children, my wife drinking wine,

Conjecturing the future times, until

The women went to bed and fell asleep,

My son and I discussed things dark and deep.

“Do you think that he is dead? Why did he die?”

“The unknown God, his will is all unknown.

To prove that nothing simply cannot be.

When he arises into life again

He shows that life does not end.” “O, but why

Did God allow the devil to tempt men?”

“The people, they laugh at the old white beard

Who sits among the clouds, that they called God.

“As if he were restricted, linear

Like a computer programme line by line

One person at a time. He’s everywhere.

And so was Satan, not a subroutine,

But at your shoulder always, in your ear,

In every soul. To evil they listen.

It was supposed the devil spoke to some

And not to all the people all the time;

“But they all heard him, the Lord of the Flies.

The light of spirit almost got snuffed out

With everyone of note taking advice

From shades and demons. Meanwhile the true God

Was poor and meek, and died upon the cross

And never pushed, but let a man decide:

Which way to go, the good way or the bad.

For the sake of free choice evil was abroad.

“Tomorrow we will go back to the city

And find the place where he is executed.

And see if we can understand the beauty

Of that triumph. It is not something repeated.”

And I said: “Maybe, if I don’t feel pity

Or recognise the truth he demonstrated

Then I will suffer doom and fail the test.”

Whispering such words we came slowly to rest.