VERSION FRANCOPHONE OTHER POEMS
SUMMARY OF LEARNERS INTRO & VOCAB
(Recited during the Middle Ages, by Languedoc Cathari perfecti during a deathwatch, much as Buddhist monks would recite from The Tibetan Book of the Dead during a deathwatch).
This poem is entirely of my invention. I dedicate it to my father who died before I could recite it to him, to all those who confront the uncertainties of life and death heroically, without the least spiritual shield, and to everyone who must die one more time, before they may apply it…
Be not afraid,
Oh Nobly Born,
For you are Saved.
Christ will shoulder
Your Karmic Burden,
No matter how damning
It may seem to you.
Breathe deeply,
Breathe softly,
Oh Nobly Born.
Close your eyes
And be at peace.
Die easily, sweetly,
And be at peace,
This one last time.
Let your soul escape
From this failing body,
With confidence, hope, and joy eternal;
As you would approach
Your own wedding,
As Christ taught us.
Oh Nobly Born!
You have bailed out of a million billion bodies
Before this one.
In as many death agonies,
Many, many lifetimes
Full of pain, fear and anxiety
Made up your destiny
Until this day.
You are free from all that now.
After you have freed yourself
From this mortal shell,
Like a pilot would bail out
Of his burning fighter plane,
Your discarnate, drifting soul
Will cruise space and time
Until you tire of its hard vacuum,
Dusty dull silence and drudgery.
You may revisit,
Like a jaded old tourist,
All the stars in heaven,
And watch universes
Take birth, flare out and die
Of intense beauty.
Or simply listen to sweet birdsong,
And watch the flowers grow,
From the rising to the setting of the sun.
You may run into
Beasts, Angels and Daemons
Reflecting your own
Desires, Hopes and Fears,
Whom you may choose
To touch and be touched by,
For good or ill.
You may tarry here on Earth,
Wander its homes and range,
Haunt places familiar or strange,
Revisit old offspring and lovers,
Lost and heartsick,
For as long as you can bear it.
You will soon tire of this,
Oh Nobly Born.
Sooner or later,
Your soul will long,
More and more urgently,
For another carnal life.
You will fall back into life,
Free-fall backward into life,
As a rock seeks its depth,
And the water, its flow,
Deep in the current of life
Irresistibly,
Worse than the need to pee,
Oh Nobly Born.
Once your starving soul
Begins to yearn for life,
You will defer your return,
Review impatiently
Interchangeable conceptions
For worthy rebirth
Into this world.
Oh Nobly Born!
Seek the unmistakable psychic beacons
Of Mary's Immaculate Conception
And of Christ’s Resurrection!
Heavy runway beacons,
Flare-strobed at both ends,
In a lifeless landscape,
Furtive couplings and dismal deaths,
Otherwise mournful, carnal and gray.
Ignore the many tiny tidal tugs
Of Karma, Familiarity, Desire and Fear
That will mislead you to seek rebirth
In a mortal infant,
A familiar setting,
Among your familiars,
And back onto the Wheel of Desire and Death.
Oh Nobly Born!
Abandon your family,
Your beloved friends,
Your many homelands,
And all your possessions.
Take up His cross instead.
Be ye born again onto His Spirit,
As into this vibrant flesh.
Recall His many parables:
They make perfect sense in this context,
And none in any other.
Grasp His lifeline,
Relive His lifetime,
That sacred Life
You could have led
Had you held true faith.
But God has mercy,
Even unto the merciless
Even unto evil.
Even unto you,
Oh Nobly Born.
Review and repent
Your irredeemable sins
In the perfect light
Of His Life and Agony.
Oh Nobly Born!
How you will wish
You had obeyed God to the letter
And submitted to Him wholly—
So cruelly will your conscience
Torment you.
Your recall of many self-betrayals
Will last His whole Lifetime.
For thirty and some long years,
Every sin you committed
You will repent a hundredfold.
Every good deed,
A meager balm
For your sin-flayed soul.
Your sins will rouse you
To speak His Words in true faith
And see the world through His shining eyes
With divine clarity,
The beam finally removed from your eye.
Be brave
When they betray and crucify you.
Wear His crown of thorns,
Grateful for this painful distraction
From your unworthiness.
Oh Nobly Born.
Your pain is almost over.
And His mercy
Might even spare you
From that which must follow
For Him.
His daylong Agony
Will seem to you the last twinge
Of your endless torment.
His Calvary, climbing Golgotha,
The last, faltering steps
Of your ascent to Heaven.
No more rebirths for you
On the Wheel of Desire and Death.
Then you may travel with Him
Direct to Heaven,
That very afternoon,
You and the repentant thief, Dismas.
There, you will find God
Awaiting you:
His only Son
And His companions,
Welcome prodigies.
And rejoin those
Who’ve flung themselves
From the Wheel of Desire and Death,
And taken up His Cross instead.
He promised to keep
This path is open for us,
His children.
Where you will rejoin your familiars,
Oh Nobly Born.
Sooner or later,
After one less death,
One more or many,
They will follow or precede you
Along this path.
Do not trouble yourself
With considerations
Of space and time,
Of before and after,
Of singularity and multiplicity,
And which soul belongs to which body.
The weakness of your faith
Blinds you to the fact
That you might pluck out your eyeball
Or chop off your arm,
Should they offend you,
Without a care,
So little do those things matter
In the make-believe that is your life
That seems vital to you.
You cannot fathom
Real matters of this Earth
In the light of Truth,
Much less those of Spirit.
Have but a little more faith,
Just a shred of hope,
Oh Nobly Born,
And you will be Saved.
No one can take this from you,
No one can talk you down,
Or extract it from you,
Neither by force,
By sentiment
Nor by persuasion.
Tell them anything they want to hear,
It will not matter.
You will die in any case
And thus be
Perfectly, miraculously and absolutely free
To choose Paradise,
Or to climb back
Upon the Wheel.
Indeed, you might choose to come back
Or might be asked to, nicely,
Help your brethren find the way,
Bring more lost children
Into the arms of God,
Oh Bodhisattva.
And you could yearn for another return,
To the good old days of desire and ignorance:
Another lesson,
A chance to do it the hard way;
Or merely cringe
Before Christ's fated Agony and yours,
Or your unworthiness for such an honor;
And submit once again
To the Wheel.
You are perfectly free to choose,
Oh Nobly Born.
Great the Father,
Great the Son
And the Holy Spirit,
Our Comforter
That Jesus promised us.
For it is through Them
That all are Saved
Who choose to be,
Who look and see,
Who listen and hear.
Fear nothing, any longer,
Oh Nobly Born.
Everyone must die,
And die again, without end,
Until we are reborn and saved,
As soon as we choose to be,
We, the ready,
As promised.
(The priests have left the room…)
Matthew 6-9, repeat alone…
LEARNERS: On the Move from WeaponWorld to PeaceWorld