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Testimony For The Future
[a reply, of sorts, to MacLeish's poem, "Epistle to be Left in the Earth"]
Just look around: so many open, empty graves
prove, once and for all time, that Jesus saves.
And yet, this evidence does not compel believing;
when, subject to slick humanist deceiving
(consider what the scholars said of Jesus' tomb).
So you will simply shrug, or scratch your head,
and leave such old-time explanations with the dead,
hoping that your existence will resume
and, somehow, get past this troubling anomaly.
Those gaping holes are pure reality.
Meanwhile, the Raptured will enjoy a happy feast
with all tears wiped away, all sorrows ceased,
and (shall we speculate?) no futher thought in mind
for those who---shirking Christ---remain behind.
Just as we did on eath, you have had every chance
to come to Christ. You thought His free gift cost
too much for you to sacrifice. Ths stubborn stance
proves even that your common sense is lost.
ENVOI:
I leave to you this poem---
a gift to testify
why we are absent, with the Lord.
And, by the way . . . Good-bye!
Starward
[jlc]
I simply love this poem.
one could easily read through your poems and be thoroughly satisfied with them, while at the same moment being totally ignorant of your amazing talent at putting these poems to traiditional form. THAT is the part about your writing that astonishes me--you lose none of the heavy meaning of your subject matter when you brilliantly set it to rhyme and meter. (and, of course, the fact that you're speaking the truth just adds to the enjoyment of it all...)
"...I desire none to be destroyed
but all to gain eternal life!
after the rapture is full of operatic
drama and rightous contempt for the wicked.
This poem in my humble opinion would not
be complete however without a "before the rapture
prayer" in behave of the those seemingly lost.
I enjoy your poems
Keep writing and Keep the faith.