Poetry

Resurrection 28

The rank and file of any nation get

Promotion till they reach the level of

Incompetence, and there they take their seat.

A large bureaucracy has one motive:

Declare an aim then do the opposite.

Kick back and take some time to just observe

How demons seem to have taken human form

So we consent to follow after them.

But good and human masters there have been.

Behind the massive walls of Harlech keep

Like people sat before a movie screen

In some dark theatre, all looking up

And fascinated by a light that shone

Upon them from the sky’s limitless deep

I found a gathering of dignitaries.

I put my hand up to protect my eyes

And tried to work out what was going on.

I did not take a seat but walked around

Observing; I avoided being seen

And looked at faces; first of all I found

Vladimir Putin sitting on his own

And smiling like a man who has in hand

A photo album causing him to see

His memories of things that used to be.

It struck me for the first time in a while

That I was on my own, and strangely moved

By loneliness, I fell beneath a spell

So that my son spoke with me, I believed:

“His God, his nation, and his people’s weal

He worked to rescue them, see them improved.

His part in the battle waged for centuries;

For peace is only found in cemeteries.

“Putin was Russia’s saviour in his age.

And there is Alexander Nevsky, saint

And soldier for his home and its prestige

Who fought the Catholic Christians when they meant

To smash the country and its heritage.

The Mongol horde came with the same intent

And felt defeat. Asked if his land would win

The war with NATO waged inside Ukraine

“Putin said: ‘I believe in God, and God

Is with us’. It was so. That soldier there

Is John Sobieski. He was in the lead

Of eighteen thousand horsemen in the war

Against the Ottomans, who stopped them dead

Outside Vienna, on the final hour,

For Christian Europe.” My son in my ear

Described these statesmen who were gathered there.

And this was my rejoinder: “Who are these

Defenders of the Faith?” gesturing toward

Some others. “They’re Defenders of countries,

Not of the faith. When everyone is dead

Or conquered by their atheist enemies

When the land is devastated by a horde,

There is no faith. Defenders of countries,

That’s who they are. Now, get a load of these:

“That’s Sir Anthony Eden in dress suit

Who thought the British Empire still existed

After the war; the last great patriot

Who served the British and by them was trusted.

There’s Enoch Powell, no aristocrat,

Yet still patrician and he still insisted

That other nations would take second place

To his land, England, if he had a choice.

“But him there, he’s the greatest English king.”

“Him with the tonsured head and bowl-cut hair?”

“Yes, he is Henry Vth, whose following,

The yeomen from the valley and the shire

Shattered the French nobility with song,

The English and the Welsh were formed out there

In France, smashing the French knights with their laughter,

For Merry England, happy ever after.

“And having done their duty to the land,

And kept the property and faith secure,

These kings and statesmen here have turned their hand

To contemplating God.” I wasn’t sure

So I asked my boy: “Are their eyes turned

To the Almighty?” When I looked up there

At a blinding light which cauterised my brain

And made me blind, I did not see again.

There was an endless orderly profusion

A million things in their ideal form.

People, the night, the day, in single vision,

All mixed and separated. Cold and warm

Inventions, feelings, land, and air, and ocean

Discoveries, animals, what is to come

And what has happened and what is still planned

The entire existence of world without end.

And all at once it poured out from its source

In stars, and other planets, elements

And compounds, works and sadnesses and joys

People in love and hate, strife and romance,

They poured upon me in their raw ideas

And at the heart of it, in infancy

The great creator of the world was stood

The child and perfect man and perfect God.

I do not know if it was hours or years

I do disparage it by what I say

It was more like a dream, where it appears

We live a different life, and in a way

Have lived a lifetime. I came back in tears

And found myself still standing by my boy

And separated from that mystic state

An individual with a simple fate.

“The one who looks at God still has a soul

And is in principle responsible

For his own life,” he said, “and we should go.”

But of the love of God I was so full

It felt improper to fall and to stray

Having fallen in love with the good and beautiful.

I turned to make my way outside the gate

To labours yet to do or incomplete,

Expecting, when I left those blessed leaders,

To be cast out again into the cold,

And to encounter other snakes and ladders.

But that is not how this tale will unfold

And if I have a reader or some readers

I will not spoil the story I have told

If I reveal that from that moment on

Having reached the summit, there was no way down.