I
How much terror he must have overcome
To climb the tree where Hell awaited him —
Facing lavaflows of fury both holy and hot.
All the rage of outraged love, hurt to the point
Of delirium and derangement, awaited him.
Every mother’s cry for wild-eyed justice
After a daughter’s defilement, would attack him:
The scapegoat, the defendant, the whipping boy
Who loved the miscreant little master who
Deserved the whip, but willingly took his place.
Everything before him threatened all the fierce
Torquing torment that omniscience could
Conceive. Humiliation was the least of it.
Degradation had been but a peaceful prelude.
II
The Wrath cannot be eidetically envisioned.
Every possible measure of ire took torrential fire
Against the victim, and was ingeniously designed
To immolate and obliterate that which he
Deliberately doused himself with: your filth
And mine. Imagine your revulsion at slick vermin
Swarming and sliming and lubricating with
Their loathsome spittle provisions in your pantry.
That is very little beside a provoked god’s frenzy
Of repugnance against every sin ever born, ever
Coddled, loved, and caressed, then sent
To the limbs, to be oozed into lubricious life.
We have no idea the anger Infinitude can add
To anger, so that Hell itself seems bliss beside it.
III
To do that which of all things in life you most
Desire, in your vitals, to avoid – to cry like a scared
Schoolchild not to be fastened to the faggots
Of the inquisitorial auto-da-fe – to beg God,
With gusto, not to slam the jagged spikes in
Where pain will be most magnified – this, this
May be the genesis or the gestational stage of
A valor, and a fortitude, forever fathomless.
All hope gone, Resolve stands up straight, adjusts
Its suit of clothes, and says, with newfound firmness,
“Now is the moment of majesty. Now evil achieves
The purposes of purity, and sin blunders in bringing
Gratitude for grace into a hundred million hearts. May
The will of the Winsome One triumph and transform.”
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