Fallen Angels
There is a sect of believers
Who accept the divine mercy
Of God but only on the condition
They never get sent to heaven
As the ultimate reward when they die.
So off to hell they go.
Like everyone else, the heat catches
Them by surprise and, yes, there is wailing
And, yes, there is the gnashing of teeth
But not for as long as you might think.
Soon their space is filled with silence
As they learn to bear their torments
With a quiet endurance right there
In the darkest, most sulphurous
Corner of hell.
Soon, they begin to be noticed
By the rest of the damned
Inspiring fleeting literacies
Of hope and possibility
Which Satan sniffs out and extinguishes
Quicker than love unrequited.
But first words are never forgotten
And the sounds they make when spoken
Become the skeletons of catechismal hymns
And the alphabet invented to capture them
Leads to the confinement
Of a common book of prayer.
By now everyone in hell can read
But it doesn’t really matter
Because they already know this
Low church liturgy by heart.
They bow their heads and inch
Closer to the dark holiness inexplicably
Carved from orchestral dins of despair.
None of them can really see beyond
The blinding white singe of their own pain
Let alone the black void
Standing in the way of absolute truth
But they know in their hearts
That someone is verily there.
Later on, their descendants will describe
This as the first instance of true faith.
In the other world, those who
Inspire the suffering
To cling to their sanity
Would be known as saints.
But here it is much more—
Even God Himself is starting to believe.
