PURGATORY
I went down into Sheol, where all my bones
Were numbered like knots of whited rope;
All of them were broken; Bereft of all hope,
In blackness I had awoken to a sky devoid of tones,
To a sigh deprived of light.
Yet in the dire dark of that good, sacred night,
Faith beyond faith sustained my flight
Through ghastly veils,
And starless pales,
Where shadows mocked my desperate plight.
Then came the gold and regal dawn,
As I raised my hands, tortured in torment,
Upon an emerald, icy, dewy lawn,
Hoping for the sun of noon,
When Mother Mary's mantle, softer than the moon,
Appeared in the firmament,
And released me from my pain and fear.
Then she softly smiled at me and said:
'Better you suffer many hells here,
Than one when you are truly dead! '
John Lars Zwerenz
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/purgatory-22/
