PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

During its contraction upon itself, the Roman

Empire began to draw its posted legions

closer to the boundaries it believed could be

reasonably maintained with the resources

available.  The garrison in our vicinity had

housed bullies---uncouth, coarse thugs,

pretending to be defenders of the teachings of

Jesus, but not guided by them---not, not at

all.  Nothing Christian directed or restrained

their perverse behavior.  An old Poet, recently

resident among us, intervened when, on their

last day, they came among us---their obvious

motivation being mayhem and lust (their two

great attractions to recruits---mayhem and lust).

But, at the approach of the last of their units, a

single patrol who just happened to be the most

recalcitrant and undisciplined among them---the

very worst of the entire Roman Army (and that is

saying something, yes indeed), he, standing alone,

gnarled, bent with gout and other illnesses

attendant upon his old age, met them.  Wielding

some power---of which we were unaware or did

not yet understand---over them, he muttered

some words in their language; at which, without

reply or retort, they simply turned back toward the

nearly empty garrison and, later that afternoon,

boarded the galley that had been sent to fetch them.

Three times each day, in accordance with his

Scriptures, he prayed.  He had raised a Cross in the

garden behind his cottage.  From time to time, we

brought him fruit from our orchards, and several of

our young men performed maintenance chores for the

upkeep of his home, or pulled the weeds and carefully

cultivated the few vegetables that small plot of soil

was able to sustain.  In winter's onset, we ensured that

plenty of firewood was delivered to him on the basis of

his need at the time.  And, every time we, or our young

men, or our healers assisted him, he raised his right

hand and said, "Christ bless you."  We did not believe in a

single god:  such singularity did not make sense to us,

but we accepted that it made sense to him.  And so we

received his blessings with sincere gratitude and the

courtesies that most Romans did not want to find among

us.  In his final hours, we surrounded his bed with

candlelight, and his soul with prayers to our own divinities.

He died, quickly and apparently without much agony.

Our healers embalmed him as they would have embalmed

one of our chieftains.  We buried him next to his own

garden, and erected a cross---even larger than the earlier

one---over the grave.  Regularly we strew it with flowers, or

clear away from it the fallen leaves of autumn, or the

windchilled snows of the winters that always seem to lengthen.

J-Called

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