Only for you, only for you.
Why take it with you when you go,
When Angels drag you naked into Heaven?
Why remember it at all?
Do you believe every other living thing
Is obscured by human shadow?
You, who believe the shadow falls
From our every flaw and shape?
If we are black-hearted
Or have lost our way,
Those that remain,
Might carry on.
The beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
Whose stewardship
We have steadfastly ignored
Will take back the world
We stole so lightly.
But you are no better than the rest of us,
With our squinting heathen faces
Masks of bewilderment beneath your rising.
Do you believe that the world
Can return to Hell
Because God has called you up,
Proved you right?
Do you believe the Earth of no further use
As you get your reward
And disbelievers their just desserts?
Were I to believe as you do
I would have words with God:
‘This is not on,’ I would say,
‘If Heaven is a place for the smug and selfish
As it surely seems to be,
Let me alone
While the world shatters.
‘I would rather have no part of this
Stepping on the bodies of the foolish,
Clambering over the shoulders
Of a million sinners,
To save myself,
Abandoning even one innocent life
To prove that I, myself, am free of sin.’
© BH 2011
It's not that I'm fulminating. I've always been fascinated by the paradox of salvation, when goodness buys you a ticket to some Paradise that is denied to others. When your goal's beyond, perhaps giving up on this life and its spiritual equivalent of the great unwashed is no great sacrifice. What then can you give up to save another soul? If not life (being a mere passing phase) perhaps it's that place in the hereafter?
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