The Ringbearers (A Poem About You)

The Ringbearers
[For John Guyton]

The ringbearers are the saviors of humanity;
There was one who fit the ring perfectly
And he took it straight to the fires of hell
So that the remnant could be fitted for our rings.

His people are the pueblo crucificado,
The despised ones, those the world
Considered refuse, the stones that the
Builders refused.

There was nothing in our appearance
That anyone should notice us;
We were sometimes pitied, more often mocked,
Sometimes beaten, sometimes lynched.

Some bore the weight more deeply than others;
The slaves, the indigenous, the queers, the autistics;
The violence done to them has never been okay;
They cry out from under the altar saying

How long O Lord! When will you
Avenge our suffering against our crucifiers?
When will you cast out the Antichrist
Who sits within your very temple

And declares himself to be God
In every pedophile preacher
Who holds a congregation hostage
By shaking his hips like Elvis?

But you are making every fruit plain;
You are dancing in every field
To reveal the path through the valley
Of the shadow of death;

We march through Mordor,
Cold, fearful, always watching for orcs,
Always trailed by our inner Smeagol
Who just wants to take the ring

And masturbate until the inner hell
Of isolation is somewhat soothed;
The rich man who masturbates on his gold toilet
Cannot be soothed by Lazarus;

He can never enter heaven
Because he already has a hand
And he knows how to use it
And thus how to be his own God.

And yet, we can hope with Hans;
We can yearn with Gregory;
That somehow in the infinity
That is love all the ones who are drunk

On the blood of the saints:
The citizens of Babylon whose
Squalor has polluted the rest of the world
Will somehow be saved too.

Because mercy triumphs over judgment;
He has bound all to disobedience
So that he might have mercy on all;
And woe to you who missed the destination

Of the entire Romans Road;
Woe to those of you who built
Citadels of delicious fear in the suburbs
And imagined yourselves to be bible teachers.

Do you not understand that the book
Has never been closed because our ancestors
Continue to speak and move within us
Which is not different than Sophia or Hagia Pneumati?

This is the age of the Spirit
And she is a wild spirit
Who can cosplay in all sorts
Of inappropriate ways using

Deities that your white chi rho shield carrying armies
Tried to stomp out in the name of Jesus;
You betrayed the lamb when you took his cross
And made it into the symbol of your own empire.

And that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit:
How dare you call Satan the breath
That invites all sentient beings into perfect love?
If control is your God, then you are just an eternal masturbator.

But this is not the story of those
Who have never stopped crucifying
The savior whom they supposedly
Declare that their lives are entirely about.

This is the story of the triumph
Of the ringbearers; they are the ones
Who have shown us how to choose families,
How to touch in ways that make bodies into temples.

Who ever thought that declaring bodies to be temples
Would create a religion that is a dungeon?
But the dungeon is no more; all its inhabitants
Will asphyxiate and disappear

Perhaps to be raised again with more humility;
But the ringbearers, they do not need to be humbled
Because they have overcome the world
And the son of man has spread his wings

Across the galaxy and embraced
The hidden family; the sheep from every pasture
Who know his voice; the second Adam
Has created a new humanity,

A people who were walking in darkness
But saw the uncreated light in their dreams;
They sowed in tears but they reap
With shouts of joy because weeping

Remains for a night but laughter comes
In the morning; the ringbearers who thought
All was lost, who presumed that God
Had forsaken them, will wake up

In the knowing that doesn’t know
But no longer yearns;
Because only they have the authority
To open the seven seals.

They are the lamb of God;
His blood and body have passed
Through all of them
And they are being sewn into

A single, perfect body —
An ekklesia called out of Babylon
Because Zion cannot be birthed
Out of Europe’s terrible sins.

Zion is the mountain of the Lord
Where his great temple will come down
From heaven in order to create
Impossibly a true city of peace.

The New Jerusalem is rising from
The ground, the well of living water
That feeds the tree of twelve fruits
Which offer medicine to heal the nations.

The Son of Man has spoken;
I am only one of his seven trumpets;
I speak from resurrected ancestors
Who have never stopped breathing love.

The gates of Minas Tirith have opened
To you and the wizard who gave you
All your magic has a crown for you
And Arwen will give you a holy kiss.