The Mending: A Poem

by Dr. Grant Horner

I shall tell you then.

I was busy that morning, busy about the given books
And counting that which needed counting
When the hurried, even frantic knock came undesired to my door
There was much to do; The Great Day was upon us
And as always (when you are busy with the things of
He Who Cannot Be Named)
One can never quite get all those little things done
That need the doing!

So that knock was the last thing I needed
Yet dutifully and with visible gravity
My face appeared opposite his who pressed into the frame
Of the passageway. We stared at one another:
The highest of men, with the greatest of privilege and power,
And this one who
served below.
I told him (rather brusquely,
As I later thought) that I could not be bothered with trifles.
If I (I said) should condescend to come down
From this Place
And solve every little problem, then who
Will keep the important things?
Who will rule — all that needs rule?

It was then that I chanced to notice the portent of his face
Carved in a single deep line
Harrowed into his sunned brow
Anchored, I thought, in the very skull, the bone itself.
I knew him (vaguely) as one of those lower kind,
Perhaps a re-maker, a harmless drudge making and remaking,
Look, write, look, write, look again,
Performing no original task, no new thought, just repeating
Repeating, remembering. Or perhaps not. Just a messenger?
What could be more bothersome, petty, than
A messenger at the door
Knocking
When there is much to do? Much preparation, much work!
But the face, the face.

Drawn, stoney as one who had seen
Something. Pale — no, less than that. As one who had seen death
Itself, or something like it. He spoke brokenly
Of a thing broken and torn.
What was that to me (I ask you) if a thing of supposed consequence
Be torn? Mend it.
But the face, the face.

So I came to the Place. You would think by the look of
Them that their slight world had been ripped as
The thing itself.
None would enter. ‘This is not,
This is not disobedient sons, strange fire, unjust Disaster.’
Yet fear had gripped their little minds, fear and…what?
Whatever it was, I would not be subject to it —
Or anything else.T
he people looked to me, looked to me, and can you even
Imagine what this is like? They looked to me, surrounded
By beauty and glory, making (for them) all things
Possible.
And when they look to me, how my heart does rise and swell
Filled with a sense of weightiness, and weight.
Weight.

I entered that Place. It was so
Ordinary. By now, I mean.
One would have thought it
just some room, anonymous, a place
of no import, a place to meet, perhaps,
or eat, sit, even sleep.
Yet…
One could linger here (though perhaps not rest) and
Gaze blankly at…what? There was nothing there.
No one. Not even a chair in which to sit and rest
One’s tired and aching bones after hours of laborious service!

And truly…
This has been a season of disturbance: petty annoyance,
minor rift, small tremor. Our captors
Senatus populusque romanorum
Have pressed us beyond measure. It is as if
We have no king but Caesar.

Now, that…that is power.

Now, staring at the Place, I could not help but wonder. . .
What the view would be like
from There.
Could I sit There, finally at rest from all the years of service,
and cry out
‘It is I, it is I, it is I’
And quaff the admiration of liquid eyes, limpid eyes
Always looking up expectantly, fearfully
When returning from the entering, once in 12 moons.
What might that be like? I am,
they say,
But a step from God.
And such a small step!
Even within the grasp.

Well! One thing is clear. We must mend the tear.
After all, no cloth fails tearing, in the end.
As if determined from the beginning . . .
All we weave Is torn asunder eventually.
As if made for the tearing.
I myself will mend it. None must enter here; none must look
Within. The mystery must remain the mystery; we who have
(On occasion) glanced furtively into the place while holding forth
The Required,
have seen — nothing. Nothing at all.
We, at least, know.
So I must stand in, close the gap, and keep the mystery,
the mystery,
Hidden.
None must know.
And all things will continue as they have from the time of
Our Fathers.