Poetry

Apocalypse 8

At Christmas in the northern hemisphere

The snow was apt to hide the usual view,

Painting it white, and lowering temperature,

It made men disremember what they knew,

To bring to mind at last their Creator.

But those days were all gone. Now there was snow

But falling on a world breaking apart

Freezing and cracking it to break its heart.

Cold winds were blowing and the air was thick,

And so I held my leader, shouting out:

“Can’t we find shelter, or make our way back?”

But winds swept up the vibrations that I made,

For words and noises make the air their track.

He first removed and then gave me his coat.

And after, just then, I clearly recall

I asked one last time about the angel.

“I want to know who that white rider is,

Who is shooting arrows at the birds and beasts

And leading those men in their butcheries.

Show me or tell me.” “I hear your requests,”

He said, “And knowing things might make you wise,

Therefore, come on, we’ll penetrate these mists.”

We walked across the devastated place,

And soon, that horseman made his way to us.

Numberless shadowy men surrounded him

And came on us as if they were a flood

And pressed and pushed me; I was standing firm

To catch sight of the rider under his hood.

I caught his eye a moment. I confirm

The rider of that white horse was my Lord.

Christ is the conqueror, bringer of ruin;

I recognised him, and then was brought down.

Flat on the ground, the crowd passed over me,

And being trampled face down suffocating

Pressed down I fancied I was going to die.

In life I’ve found myself deliberating

Whether the worst is really going to be,

When I was soldiering once I was waiting

To be killed or to be guilty of death.

Your bowels relax, your lungs grow short of breath;

You see yourself as if from the outside

And can’t believe this thing is happening.

I asked myself: “Is he really my God,

Who is killing me and killing everything?”

But shortly someone pulled me from the mud.

At first, they shouted at the unholy throng,

And forced the crowd to split and separate,

Then brushed me down and got me on my feet.

The army went its way leaving the four of us.

My master and the two who had been kind.

“I am that John of the Ladder, Klimakos,

That’s how the Church has kept me in its mind.

My friend here wrote the Ascetical Discourse,

Saint Isaac. I am glad to lend a hand

And to explain the difficult insight

That you have gained and that has put you out.”

“You mean to tell me how this destruction

Has any meaning?” He responded: “Yes.”

And I: “Imagine a man and woman

Cohabiting somewhere some council house

Who, following the commands of their passion,

Despite the children, perpetrate abuse.

They argue and they punch holes in the doors,

They strip the carpets to the naked floors,

“They leave the cupboards empty of all food,

Throw out the TV and the telephone,

Cut off the water. Some say they are in need

Of help and love and blame it on the man.

Some say they are evil, contrary of good.

I say that this is what is being done

To the world and Earth right here in open sight.

I cannot even tell between day and night.

“How could this happen?” then I fell silent.

Afar the noise of battle could be heard

But it was calm near us. Then spoke the saint:

“When God was man, (he still is man and God),

He took upon himself a man’s garment.

The type of life he lived was just as hard

As any suffered by a common man

He shared a human life’s allotted span.

“Today, or for eternity, it is time

For your protector to take final action

And make at last the heavenly kingdom come.

Perhaps, free from all passion and distraction,

You can endure to find yourself at home

In happiness that comes by this subtraction

This eating less, not drinking to excess,

And seeing, hearing, thinking less and less.”

“So, what? The world is turned into a cell

The type you lived in as an anchorite?”

I said these words, and then he: “It is well

To notice what I and my brother wrote,

We wrote it clearly: that the silence will

Allow the fallen to communicate

With God, and share his mind and be corrected.

The monk is reborn, he is resurrected.

“You put on Christ, you wear him, are reborn.

And with the grace of God that is what happens.

I do not know, but that’s what’s going on.

Monastic combat but with other weapons.”

He spoke and sang my mind another tune

As when a key is used and a door opens

So my lungs eased, air flowed into my mouth

And the words went in with it following my breath.

The words of these two saints aimed for my heart

And went in there and lodged inside my breast.

And when they left leaving to do their part

In that fading of Earth by armed conquest

They went off to join up with the rear guard.

And I resolved to undergo the test

With better hopes, and to be loyal to my guide

Who started walking with me at my side.

“There’s Wellington, the British Iron Duke,”

My master said as more of the undead

Were passing us to do and undertake

Their missions deep in time, as those saints said.

But many of them seemed to go on strike

And fall aside, lie down, as if they’d had

Enough of time and space and this combat.

But Wellington was having none of that.

We went along with him for centuries

Or miles of track, that old Prime Minister

Who ensured England owned its territories

All over Earth once he had won the war

At Waterloo. Now my contemporaries

Have said that England is a racist slur

A coloniser spurred on by pure hate

But that is not a valid estimate.

If England and our army had not won

France would have ruled the globe in any case.

It was a local quarrel in the main,

The domination of the human race.

It’s academic. The Athenian

Submits himself to the Peloponese.

And Sparta’s empire extended like sand

Like desert over all the land around.

I saw the Duke’s men throwing hand grenades

And firing automatic into dens,

Like British soldiers practicing their raids

At Sennybridge and Brecon, Derring Lines.

The Royal Welch were there with their comrades

From the Chinese revolt, the US Marines,

The days when they were fighting back to back

To do the Anglo-Saxon’s global work.