Poetry

Resurrection 16

Out of the corner of my eye I saw

A large conical shape twenty feet high

Traverse the wilderness near where we were

Purposely out of sight it seemed to me;

It had organic tubes, some three or four

Emerging from it where the head should be

And three fat round struts that it used for walking;

But when I looked it vanished. We were talking:

“Father, has he brought demons into heaven?

Has Dad created devils here among us?”

My son said this, and I said: “What do you mean?”

And he: “I saw them, diabolic strangers

Pursuing us. Just as a starving man

Cannot think straight because his pain is outrageous

He lacks a world, and is obsessed by food,

And his world shrinks down to nothing in that mood,

“So, his horizons open and expand

And he is free to think when he is full.

Thus that man’s world depends upon his mind.

That’s how it is here. What is in your soul

Creates the contents of this divine land.

Some evil thing has come with us as well.”

I stopped and looked around to see that other

My son and daughter could not find it either.

We kept on walking, on to Anglesey.

It was a metalled road between lime trees.

I said: “Just now, you said something to me,

But also seemed to talk toward the skies,

You addressed me, saying ‘Father’, and yet why

Talk to another father in my place?”

The boy replied: “Our Father, Otche Nash,

I asked God, not to beat around the bush.”

“That’s metaphorical, to speak of him

As actually a father, isn’t it?”

I said. That conical and massive form

Was moving with us once more, to our right

A kind of windmill thing with a single arm

More like a kettle with a mobile spout.

“It’s there again, that devil,” I whispered,

“Beyond the hedgerow, going straight ahead.”

“It’s not a metaphor to call him Father.

It’s not a figure to call this our land

Our land. It’s my land. I desire no other.

Nobody owns it.” “On the other hand,”

I told the boy, “That we three are together

Has happened since we left that place behind.

It was not my land, in the last account.

I lived too long to love the government.”

“God is a father, and the land is mine,”

He said. “You’re talking like a child,” I said,

“My fears and demons came with me, my sin,

I see it now. But how they interfered.

Your mum fell ill, I could not intervene,

You spent your days indoors and were not fed,

I could not rescue you because the state

Had put an interdict on what I did.

“And I’m your father, I’m the only one.”

“Even when the law had stopped you helping us?

We have a father we can bet upon.”

My gentle reader, see the kind of mess

That I was in, holding tight to my sin,

I called out to my daughter, close to tears:

“Don’t speak against me, ever, they will come

And take you from me, like the other time.”

We had stopped to argue over this sore point.

She asked me: “Take me from you, take me where?”

“Yes,” I said, “Take you. Lazy government

Would coalesce against me like before

And make a lazy prejudiced judgement

Against me. It is not a metaphor

That I’m your father. You would be alone.

Don’t speak against me, not to anyone.”

Was she in panic? She began to cry

And put her arms around my waist meanwhile,

But not from fear, but out of sympathy,

Then started walking toward the holy isle

Saying: “That was how it was and used to be.

When Agamemnon took the lovely girl

From brave Achilles. A loving parent would

Go through a crucifixion for their child.

“Love comes with all the chances of its loss

And pain. But it is happiness as well

Love is life’s meaning and life’s happiness.

Our Father feels the same thing and in full.

So, when a sinner turns to him and prays

It’s like when any mother sees the smile

The first smile of her daughter and is glad

That’s how our Father feels, how our God

“When someone turns to him he feels that joy.

He is a parent, too. That was his reason

For creating the old world and the new.

The simple kindness, the neglected passion

That we had failed to give him or live by

To love him and each other.” It’s amazing

How this idea revolted me always

Because I knew and feared my enemies.

And it is true, the state has never loved

Though men and women give force to the state

Which cannot love, because it never lived,

Unless a king, if we are fortunate.

“He is a father, then, as you have proved.

A person waiting, watching, like a dad?”

“No,” she said, “Not just like, but in full sooth

And if you want to know the entire truth

“The thing you most desire, what you desire

And cannot grasp, that thing will be disclosed

Right where you least expect it, where you fear

To look. So, like as when, with your arms crossed,

You sit and do not think, but go in prayer,

And find the truth, and come to complete rest,

This is the hardest thing for every man

Because his entire being wants to run

“His eyes are closed, his hands are on his chest,

His thoughts are weak and he is filled with love,

But doing nothing makes him feel depressed,

He’s fighting with his instinct to survive.”

Afar I saw Beaumaris on the coast

The place of wisdom, and of how to serve

The Church. May all those not yet in the fold

Rejoice and join and learn from what I have told.