1
“Who are those people, looking from the tower
That reaches to the skies, the new made skies?”
I said, and Wellbeck: “There are places higher
Than you have seen, people and hierarchies.”
“I want to see them. How do we get there?
My poem must account for men like these
It is a story written for the ages
With total knowledge printed on its pages.”
2
He told me: “They are the masters of creation
But more like Buddhist monks than Protestants.
To truly follow Jesus is their mission
They know the inner truth of God’s commands.
Obscure in life and low ranking in station
The power and truth of God was in their hands
Rich jews or freemasons in urban myth
Ruled from the shadows as these did in truth.
3
“That’s Origen, there, look!” I could not see
The man above us that he pointed out.
“He gave the Christians Greek philosophy
And with the harshness of imperial thought
He first described the divine Trinity.
And Irenaeus with him at his side,”
My friend gestured toward the firmament
“Who first collected the New Testament.
4
“So, whereas Harold Bloom described the canon
Of literature, saint Irenaeus chose
The books that you can read about God’s son in.”
I could not see as if I had no eyes.
“I need to reach that plane which has those men on.
How do I climb?” It might have taken days
Or years or seconds, it is unclear to me.
But stood up, elevated, finally
5
And concentrating on the holy name
Humbled, or without pride or vanity
And cured or saved and focused all the same
And letting thought fall quiet inside me
Leaving the heart to speak in its own time -
Which cures the sickness burning passionately -
I was permitted grace and to be saved.
I will tell you faithfully what I observed.
6
A country with great mansions here or there
A vast country of decency and rule
And men who I’ll enumerate later
Who shoot and hunt and catch whatever they kill
And farm that land in person year on year
As fit as soldiers, strong and wise as well
Enjoying their own land and their own house
A caste of lords with wealth in peaceful ease.
7
Alert in intellect and modest in
The joy of living in this vast estate.
I saw there Athanasios, he was one
Who wrote the creed down at an early date
And Ambrose that great bishop of Milan
Who taught the saints how to instruct the state.
They were so far away and also near.
There was Brianchaninov whom I hold dear
8
Who made the monasteries of the east
Revive the old traditions of the monks
And Nikodemos, he was in that caste,
With St Makarios who deserves our thanks;
The desert fathers who lived in the waste,
Those who abjured the world, there filled the ranks
Of the nobility around God’s throne,
To speak in metaphors as best I can.
9
Up there is ceremony and every act
Was ordered and superfluous except
It was a symbol of an inner fact
An inner movement in the silence kept
An aspiration of the intellect.
Amazed by all of these things, I was rapt.
“How can I climb up there?” I asked my friend
Where is the ladder that lets you ascend?
10
“I want to talk to God and get some answers.
How do you get to see the man?” I said;
But Wellbeck shrugged, as Frenchmen do, his shoulders.
“He speaks enough in things that he has made
And to our inner conscience. In the pincers
Even in the crabs which scrape the dark sea bed
Which plough and fertilise the obscure sand
You see his message and descry his mind.
11
“That’s all I know,” he said. But I returned:
“Where I am from a constitutional power
Allows investigation, science, and
The publication of free speech by law
It is time to meet my maker,” I explained.
“Father of everything, maker, father,”
So I began my speech aimed at the heavens.
I spoke like this, expecting a response:
12
“This coastal place of castles and cold season
Is my own, it has not escaped my notice.
The memories that are imprinted on my reason
Have been the mould from which this world is cast.
These fortresses, this landscape, suit my person,
A land for me from Harlech to Beaumaris;
But I have also brought my failure here
And left my wife, and little ones, somewhere.
13
“This after life is battering me now
Just like the first one, so that it is spoiled.
How could I make it good withouten you?
I can’t originate. I’ve worked and toiled
It is not the best of all worlds in my view.
Help me, and speak to me inside this world.”
I listened then. And then the still small voice
I heard address itself to me like this:
14
“We struggle and we wrestle, God with man,
When I was on the earth I was betrayed,
And murdered and the scars have never gone;
So, you were made to be saved and be cured.
To be healed means: to believe in my Son
That he was raised and rescued from the dead
And overcame the world’s death, to abjure
The world and keep his mind and his heart pure.
15
“Now people ask most often ‘what is life?’
Or, in good English, what’s the meaning of life?
You know the answer that I have to give
It is to struggle with me and to love.”
He spoke. And anyone would take his leave
But I have never known when it is enough
Insisting even where it is unsafe
Speaking with God, of which here is more proof:
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