Poetry

Resurrection 3

The child was always evidence of God

My warrant to do what I had to do.

My family, my wife, were always good

Love’s proof and reason for seeing things through.

They used to show the goodness of the world.

So knowing them, I knew that it was true

That God was really real. Such loyalty

Remains in after life to hold on to.

To anybody in the apocalypse

To anyone surviving still out there

It’s not all roses here, but read my lips:

Even here in heaven I had to work my share

“Achilles, when he went back to the ships

He had a tent, Dad. We need a shelter.

Although all hell was breaking loose outside,

He and his cousin had a place to hide.”

So, if I tell you how I built a house,

It might be useful knowledge to retain

And poetry is words you memorise.

She said: “Concrete is made from hot limestone,

The grey stone that is prone to water furrows

Where water cuts out pathways for itse’en.

Get that stone, and we’ll make a liquid rock

As concrete or as cement for your brick.

“Dig up and smash the stone to bits and pieces

And put it in a kiln of burning wood,

And let in air into the empty spaces.

And when all of the carbon dioxide,

Is burned away what’s left among the dust is

Quicklime, the stuff they throw upon the dead

In forests in the movies when they bury

Their rivals. If you breath it, you’ll be sorry.”

I started, gathering rock, and heating it

And when it cracked and melted in the fire

And formed a dusty residue she said:

“Now slake it with some water, go on pour!

In no time then it will become solid

And bind and make an excellent mortar

Like liquid stone. And throw in stone and bricks

To make a solid floor against the kicks.”

So, I dug out a ditch to three foot deep

To pour the concrete in. The trench would mark

The outer walls of our projected keep.

The day and night came while I did the work.

In Acheron, the ghosts and spirits creep

And squeak and gibber in the infernal dark,

Toward the trench of sacrificial blood

That travellers down there dug in to the mud;

But actual men approached me as the sparks

Were flying and my tools glanced off the stone;

Four shapes, not shades, but men of various works

Each one a genius, one world on his own:

Sir Isaac Newton made some kind remarks -

Which I will show you – there was also Wren

And Hooke and Halley, who showed space has rules.

Compared to these, most other men are fools.

“You people are the first men I have seen,

And such greatness of intellect as well,

In this Arcadia. I am digging in

To build a house for me and for my girl.”

And Newton said: “That’s how you must begin.

And next, you have to find yourself a well,

Of water. In the old days on the earth

When ruin came you had to run a bath

“If on the TV or the radio

The signal came to prepare for the end

You ran a bath and let the water flow

While it still flowed, pumped by the water plant.

You cover it or else there starts to grow

A green bacterial algae you don’t want.

Keep all your stored water out of the sun.

Each day a person needs a full gallon.

“You’ll need to find some water here long term,

You filter it with charcoal and with grit,

So have a bucket lined with both of them,

And pour it through. And you must disinfect

With chlorine drops so that it cause no harm.

Find water, and then do as I instruct.”

“I like this place,” I said when he had finished,

“I have no sentiment of being punished

“While digging and the sweat weeps from my brow.

My work in life had no productive point

I used to work but nothing seemed to grow.

I toiled and brought forth even though it meant

Nothing to anyone. I used to say

Just leave this country, leave this country behind.

That’s what the English always used to do

To leave England and set up somewhere new.

“So here, I’m happy,” such was my confession.

And he: “In danger one makes a safe place,

If he uses empiric observation.

You trust your senses to supply ideas,

Combine ideas in a logical fashion

And test them truly, double blind, no lies.

Science predicts the outcome of its trials,

It’s true if it predicts, and not true if it fails.”

Then I said: “Thank you, Sir. When did you land

When did you and these other men get here?”

And he: “There was no start and there’s no end

To the duration. I say, find water

Like someone lost in wilderness should find

And follow streams because they lead, for sure,

To people and to ports. Thus, after this,

Like someone in the trenches who fears gas

“Should shield his face against the mustard gas

With water, or more properly with wee,

So do that next. Although we are deathless

Food and drink are required by the body.

In great defeat, there was a saving grace

In highest triumph of dark technology

Which followed on my studies, in robots

And artificial minds, and such defeats

“Of human love and kindness that we saw

In objectivity, and slavery of science,

And state coercion, and in nuclear war,

We saw at last that these were just the chance,

The opportunity to see and hear:

The joyful inner calm of experience,

Of living as a soul talking to God.

I believed and so I spoke, and I was heard.”