Falling Away: The Apostate's Song
by Daniel Morgan
1 Cor 16:11
I. Diaspora
These aren't the hills I wished to see.
My bone's raiment is worn leather.
Since I'm no friend for troubled climes,
May eventide bring fair weather.
For I've no strength to remain where
My folly is so far to tread
Through sullen woods and mountains bare
And every memory that I'm led.
(But sometimes prayers can come too late.)
I had no choice to follow you -
Dream-spoken voice, a hallowed face,
Curled by meekness, soft and rue . . .
I know Wakefield's a distance place,
A house of candles, four windows.
Like sign of rosy-visioned cross,
There's rest for all by ingle-glow.
To lodge within those gracious halls,
Redemption does give smile's release.
To sit near your accompanied song,
Consumption revels in the feast.
The One-Eyed Norse, he'd tip a grin.
The seelie folk would win my luck.
You'd play the humble maidservant,
I'd slip a kiss - you'd swing - I'd duck,
Then ring an arm around your waist.
With mulled ale in my other hand,
You'd bid me on to dance the lead
Beyond gold fields to dawning lands . . .
But mares have sought me in the night,
Leaving me scapegoats to tend
While sheltered under David's stars,
The knapsack sky His wrath will rend.
And there's no inn for my laments,
No mickle care for calloused past.
My mackintosh I'll clasp once more,
An exile's carcass to outlast.
If when the pain becomes too much,
I'll decrease like you taught me to.
And when rains fall I'll not get up,
For your white hands left me the dew.
Rather through tears I could get by.
As well as all the whispered things,
God's mysteries just come upon,
From what a cockleshell may sing.
II. Cruxifixion
Oh, when I spoke was it too soon?
Or was there hardship in my eye?
So if I gave you all my sins,
Would your words have split the skies?
Your voice like smooth, delicate wine
Is quick to pour, "Tetelestai."
I shrivel in the Maiden's lap,
Patient, fabulous beast am I.
All affections I could but stop
And I could fence in eye's rapport,
To never be near your presence
Unless your hand unstrains the door.
I only wished to fell your bars,
The reefs that kept friendship sunk down,
And to keep you from calm's anguish -
Tis end; now all hands are drowned.
That calm we knew was more a storm,
Like rope that's stretched too taunt to hold
Onto all that's not nailed down,
Unless one could spin fields of gold.
A Lazarus, you know, is rare
And quite tricky to raise a crew.
So is perfection in these pothers.
Why strive for any weak "I do's"?
But weakness is the homage paid
By commoners who gather near,
From pregnant stars to crippled sheep,
Welcomed in the Babe's unformed fear.
We're fragile too. We're still infants.
But we could have received the word
Of our first love and brave new worlds
That crossed the cradle of our Lord.
III. Annunciation
Desire like highest angel's breath
Still lives in her with great red wings.
So when the red first touches her,
How love will bleed in sufferings.
Each covenant is meant to give
Its share of blood, unvirgined woe.
By one nod, I'd take her sword,
I'd burn my lips, my blood to flow.
O do not list; be still mother,
Who must go on and follow Christ,
Deny me thrice, and keep your prayers;
You'll not look back at that sword's price.
To you who gathered angelsong,
Wrapped them, sowed them in thy heart,
I couldn't voice just what they said,
But I would sing quietly apart
So all my tears no one will see.
I cannot hear them anyway.
Nor would they know what Passion means,
The wounds far too deep to display.
IV. Diaspora
I do not ask for sweet answers
On which my soul could rest along.
And if I knew those thoughts of yours,
I could not pretend you were wrong.
The times we've known have lost colour,
Now framed within my mired fate.
But was that fate that passed me by?
And providence averred at the gate?
My sodden mind will not relent
From that question's graspless wind.
My besmirched knees will simply break.
Someone says, sleep. begin again.
Forsaken God, You've palmed my paths,
From every sin You've traced the them.
But all the roads have led me back
To her, my love, my debt of sin.
Now whom she'll welcome in, I pray:
A dream beyond the shores of night,
The prince that ends each storybook,
Whose hands could skin of moonlight.
Why did the Spirit come beside?
To only quench paschal altars?
If then my soul were not so dry,
Might my foot have not so faltered?
For after we had walked once more,
That's when he seemed to cut the ends.
So I would pass the doorposts by
And travail till there comes a bend.
I know Wakefield's a distance place,
Far from hungry wolves and ravens.
Deep within its rosy-bright den,
Fair weather might bring fair havens.
Lady, I'd wait out your window
For nothing's long like shadows grow.
And I would weather anything
For nothing's colder than my soul.
["Iscariot" leaves off; I, his beloved, furnish the end]
V. Adoration
Burlap embraced his baptism
With rise and fall of Christ's huge chest.
He felt each hair's soft, wet kiss
And as God sighed (His sighs are best),
The smell as alabaster breaks
Has given all reason to cry.
For while the lowly bridegroom waits,
He's forced to go while still she bides.
Note:
It is rumored that the nursery rhyme "Mary Mary Quite Contrary" has its origin in Mary Tudor's torturing Protestants with devices like 'silver bells' (thumbscrews) and 'cockleshells' (something I won't mention).
An exile's carcass refers to the practice of making the exile carry the carcass of an animal, much like scapegoating.
An exile's carcass refers to the practice of making the exile carry the carcass of an animal, much like scapegoating. As in Yeats' "sailing to to Byzantium": "Consume my heart away; sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal / It knows not what it is; and gather me / Into the artifice of eternity."
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