Poetry

Resurrection 13

Awake again, as if raised from the dead,

I saw the lady of the empty grave

Next to the stone that had been rolled aside

Inside the garden, by that vacant cave.

The child was there; my boy was at my head

Solicitous for me. And someone else

A man in mufti with a long moustache

A soldier in civilian clothes, Nietzsche.

“This swoon is like my own,” said Zarathustra,

“When I embraced the horse’s neck and cried

In my last words: ‘Ich bin dumm, meine Mutter!’

Do you want to know what caused me to be mad

So that I never spoke a word thereafter?

How I who knew, according to Herr Freud,

Himself the best of any who ever lived

How I became as simple as a child?

“It is a riddle in a mystery

Wrapped in enigma. Have they solved it yet?

That I was broken and called on Mary

And asked her to plead for me before Gott.

And then refused to speak, as if to say

The highest point for the human elite

Is to know: if you don't become like children

You will not see the kingdom of heaven.

“It took some courage to perform that role

To chase Protestantism to the extreme

Through the denial of God until I fell

By guilt from fighting him all of the time,

To punishment. The works I left foretell

The failure of attempts to fight with him.”

I got up, feeling stronger in my limbs

And then the Lady spoke these dithyrambs:

“He made you look for God first, didn’t he?

Perhaps he was the most Christlike of Germans

Burning down to the socket, so lonely

His final decade spent in quiet repentance

For God alone forgives, and nobody

Is good until saying: God have mercy on us.

Nobody is himself until at last

He asks forgiveness from Lord Jesus Christ.

“It is not easy thinking through life’s meaning

And staying clear of capture by the world.

To totally renounce it is the beginning

With courage. Recognising you are called

Without the hope of coming close to winning

A victory, and finally to be killed

By age or friends, or by the nation state

Which cannot be depended on one bit.

“Come to this tomb and see what you’ve created.”

She took my hand and led me to the tomb,

I looked inside that rock hole tessellated

With moss and lichen which the castle room

Had been constructed on. It was decorated

With flags as I have said, but in the gloom

Which opened on my eye beyond that linen

A vision opened. A familiar scene

My new home and my woman at the hearth

And down below for fathoms and for miles

Down to the very centre of the earth

Where hot and molten iron roils and swells

Encasing which, the planet. A new birth

Of seas and lands, of pathways and of hills.

Out from my home the ways radiated

To Flint and Rhuddlan, just as I have said.

The one a court room for the exercise

Of justice, and the other military.

A new world without time in infinte space.

No sickness and no death or misery.

“The very centre of this holy place

Is you,” and I said: “How could it be me?

Not much more than four limbs and one small head

A poor foundation for a world.” And she said:

“Go now, the next way station is Conway.

And there a different strength to see and learn.

And after that, perfection, finally.

Through the communion of the bread and wine.

And other things concealed until the day.

I gathered up my daughter and my son

Kissing the lady’s hand for a blessing

And bowing to my teacher. I should sing

The longest ages of apparent time

That I have spent admiring that frail man

And his excessive learning, til I came

To turn from him, and be a Christian

Which was his plan. I owed so much to him.

But when I turned around and to explain

He wasn’t there, and so I made to leave

And doing so, I found it hard to move

Since, purposefully standing in my path

Was he I stole so much from for this book

The Florentine, the greatest polymath,

Who clearly wanted me to stop and talk

And blocked me as the leopard and the wolf

Had done to him. “What is the weather like?”

He said, and I: “It’s better now, today.”

“It’s always been too hot, or cold for me.”

I nodded and we shook hands. I escaped

I talk to Dante here, so close we are.

I would complete this chapter now, except

I must lay down instructions for a fire

To burn with double heat. First, you must sculpt

The bricks from fine grained clay. Heat them til they

Go hard and build a small house and a flu

It has a door, and has a basement, too.

The house is sealed, but underground the coals

Are burning hot, now blast some air at them,

Aiming the air at them with pump or bellows

They’ll suck that air in and explode with flame

And make a heat above which melts metals.

Collect scrap metal, melt it in the same

And mould it as you like. Or find the ore

Inside the ground and mine it to get more.

A camp fire is 800 degrees C

A furnace or a kiln is 1200

But I have told you this before, I see.

We measure C as follows: when you find

That water turns to steam then it must be

100. Zero, on the other hand,

Is when your water starts to turn solid

The steps between these points are one hundred.