City of Tears

City of Tears


Know that you are not for the barren heart of fire,
Nor the congested womb of dark:
You are bound for the city of water, of salt, of unhealed scars.
Only you can measure your stay:
But the way to the garden of God winds through the City of Tears.

The day comes when all contracts expire.
Suddenly, your purse is empty:
Those Get out of Jail Free tokens, there is nothing left of them but leather filled with wind.
Do you protest that you've been cheated?
Or do you laugh like a drunken brute?
Do neither.
Be quiet, and behold the balance:
Behold its empty golden bowls.

You stand in the cavern, and the Great Treasure opens itself before your eyes.
It explodes in silent light.
There's a little fence with a gate:
Do you hang back, or kick it in?

The great jewels sing: They don't care what you do.
The great jewels blaze, in spite of you.

You'll go for the gate.
Few see the flood running in front of the fence.
Most of us will step on it, and be pulled down.

So what? I'll swim.
If there's no Hell, I'll punch my children down.
I'll butcher my neighbor,
And bring along a gang to rape his wife before he dies.

I'll swim quite well.
I'll castrate my daughters
And cripple their feet
Just like my mother did to me.
And I'll carve and eat the flesh of those who don't agree.

God will gorge me on honey and and dress me in diamonds—right?
I'm saved: It doesn't matter what I do.
Right?

In time, the torrent murmurs, in time--and carries you, thrashing, to dark.

In the distance, the great jewels sing.
Then you are swung with the water around a bend
And they are gone.

The stream channel ends, and you smack your face into the docks.
And you find out that angels can be rough.

Start crying about your broken jaw: get your crying under way.
Start crying: it will only save you time.

They'll haul you into it, the Court of the Pearl.
It's got pews all around, and headsets to replay your mind.

In the middle is the pool.
Beneath its membrane of water
The Big Pearl will throb
And you'll crawl to the brink, and you'll cry.

Whatever you did, the Pearl knows.
It's soft, not at all like a gem.
It throbs like a muscle, like a mollusc, like a heart.
It throbs like a mother's round breast
It pounds like the blood in a clenching fist
It pounds and it hums like the world.
You'll spend all your strength--
You'll thrash and deny--
But you'll spend all your strength
And you'll cry.

The Pearl knows it all. Everything you did.
Don't deny, for denial spins chains.
Denial spins rings, and the rings turn to links.
And the chains, they know only to wed.

You'll turn, and you'll find your feet chained
To the ignorant leg of your pew.
You'll scream, but an angel will smack you
And shove your face into the pool.

The Pearl knows why.
Like any pearl, it has a grit for a heart.
Its own grit heart stayed sullen.
Its own grit heart ignored the enfolding flesh of God.
It kept apart, so it thought--hard and watery cold.
But suddenly one evening
It awoke to a terror of warmth.
There could be no denial.
Like a hog for slaughter
It fattened; it was the Pearl.

It now neither walks, nor toils, nor speaks.
Now, neither do you.

Backward, you claw at the base of your chain.
Why am I chained to a pew??

Maybe it is the place you accounted highest.
Maybe you thought it was the stupidest place anyone could be.
Or maybe you knew some other place that was holier than a bench.

It matters not now. The angels are here.
They need no balance, no weights.
If you try to crawl away, they've got seashells and leashes,
They've got lashes and silver bowls.
One way or another, you'll give up your tears.
You'll fill the pool of Love.

Cry, for there is nothing else you can do.
You are here:
You don't breathe, you don't eat, don't excrete.
Do what you're here for.
Cry.

Under the sun, you withheld.
Under the moon, you were dry.
It's still inside you: you're a miser's fist.

Pour it out, and give that water
Give that salt
Give those tears
Back to God
Back to God's world
Back to the ones you wronged.
Water them.
Let them go.

They may be very well down on their knees beside you.
If that happens, raise up and kiss them.
Taste their snot and give them yours,
Then get back to work, and cry.

Never mind the dictator next to you, the one who wronged you with his might.
Look at him, how he crawls. He has looked into the Pearl of Great Price, and seen Himself.
Let him writhe himself raw on the cobblestones.

Never mind the rich one, on your other side.
She spat on you
But her tears fetch no better price than yours.

Never mind your slaves.
Embrace them if they are near,
But don't try to drink their salt water away.
Their tears must be theirs,
And yours must be your own.

Above this white city with towers of unheeded gold
And orchards silent and lush
With backstreets deserted but for angels and strays
The sky, it is wet, sad, and soft.

The wailing goes up.
The angels empty bowls into the pool.
The Pearl bobs below the surface of your tears
And channels take the overflow away.
The Pearl has its yearnings, too.
Someday, someday, it will be released
And it too will know the Ocean of Love.

Each day, the angels squeeze someone dry.
There is no sorrow left.
The angels cut off the prisoners' hands and feet so that they can no longer be chained.

Those, the squeezed-out husks,
The Hollow Ones,
They gaze down at the Big Pearl, and the pool shakes.
For these dry ones, from underneath the waters, the Pearl laughs. The Pearl shakes.

Suddenly the City of Tears flies below them: those the Pearl laughs at, go on.
Their raw souls knit and heal.
They are whole.
They feel, as they lift on their journeys,
Not like husks, but
Like uncarven loaves.

Life is behind: Life lies ahead.

The chasm of Heaven rips open: the Great Treasure is there.
The gems again blaze and sing.
God holds them out to you, but you laugh.
Thank you, you reply. I've no need.