[Glenn Wright]

Four Last Things

The rain falls on us all, just and unjust,
those who sink in doubt and those who trust
in God, growing weeds of hate and seeds of love.
Soon Death will separate me, soul from dust.

Then will my Judgment come from Christ above.
There’s no deceiving Father, Son, and Dove.
The book of deeds I wrote on earth, each page,
will then be seen by all. Perhaps a shove

will send me plunging down—my well earned wage:
eternity spent in a mirrored cage,
cast into the jaws and guts of Hell,
devouring myself to the last age.

Perhaps the Father, knowing me so well,
will, in His mercy, free me from that cell,
guide me home to Heaven, where I will dwell
with Him, kept in His love’s protecting shell.
————————————————
Edits:
S1L2: on those who trust in faith or yield to lust. > who struggle to choose faith instead of lust. > those who sink in doubt and those who trust
S1L3: God’s fields grow weeds of hate and seeds of love. > in God, growing weeds of hate and seeds of love.
S3L4: devouring myself from age to age. > devouring myself to the last age.
S4L3: guide me home to Heaven, with Him to dwell, > guide me home to Heaven, where I will dwell
S4L4: and keep me in His love’s protecting shell. > with Him, kept in His love’s protecting shell.

[Chelsea McClellan]

Hi Glenn,

A few thoughts:

"The rain falls on us all" is a cliche which, in my opinion, is not quite earned/justified by anything different in the lines around it.

"trust in faith or yield to lust" seems like it might be a false equivalence, if it wants to remain consistent with the theology of mercy presented in the fourth stanza. As if the person who trusts in faith would not also ever yield to lusts.

Respectfully, I didn't learn anything new from reading this poem. And I wasn't convinced that the poet learned anything by writing this poem. Nor was I significantly entranced by the language. It seemed, to me, like a case of either 1. unpersuasive theological rhetoric or 2. the real impetus/reason for the writing of the poem was left out.

Take care,
Chelsea

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Chelsea—

Thanks for weighing in. It’s helpful to know how a piece of writing lands with different readers. I appreciate your time and considered responses.

Originally Posted by Chelsea McClellan

"The rain falls on us all" is a cliche which, in my opinion, is not quite earned/justified by anything different in the lines around it.
I began with this verse from Matthew Ch. 5 to underscore the contrast between the world of the living, where good and evil are allowed to flourish together, and the world of the dead where they are separated. I wanted the reader to consider the seeming unfairness of this world against the self-imposed justice of the next.

"trust in faith or yield to lust" seems like it might be a false equivalence, if it wants to remain consistent with the theology of mercy presented in the fourth stanza. As if the person who trusts in faith would not also ever yield to lusts.
This is a good point. It is overly simplistic and wrong to divide people into good and evil. More accurate would be to point out the battle between good and evil that occurs in each person. I’ll see if I can fix this.

Respectfully, I didn't learn anything new from reading this poem. And I wasn't convinced that the poet learned anything by writing this poem. Nor was I significantly entranced by the language. It seemed, to me, like a case of either 1. unpersuasive theological rhetoric or 2. the real impetus/reason for the writing of the poem was left out.
I hoped that readers would notice that the actual states of being for the saved and the damned were the same. Both are assigned to cells or “mansions” in the next life. The damned, however are alone with themselves and are forced to “reflect” on the decisions they made in life and re-digest them. The saved are always with God. They are not condemned to focus for eternity on themselves.

Glenn

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Glenn! Aha, you're toying with Frost's interlocking rubaiyat structure for "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" again....

I don't agree 100% with the narrator's belief system here, which is fine — I can still appreciate a religious poem without necessarily agreeing with its theological thesis. I do, however, need a poem to deliver the sorts of things that poems can, but prose cannot. I don't just mean the skillful use of rhyme and meter, but the creation of a poetic experience, opening out to vivid sensations and possible meanings.

This piece gives me the impression that the narrator is saying pretty much what the poet wanted him to say, with minimal inconvenience posed by the tricky form; that's impressive, but maybe the technical mastery makes things just a bit too straightforward, without leaving much room for discovery or startling insights. As Robert Frost said, “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

I also wonder who the intended audience is for this. The title suggests familiarity with the Catholic tradition of referring to death, judgment, hell, and heaven as "the Four Last Things," and L1 expects familiarity with Matthew 5:45. But isn't a reader who is already familiar with those prerequisites likely to be even more familiar with the dogmatic concepts mentioned in the poem? So why rehash all this stuff?

Is the narrator trying to convince himself of God's mercy, but can't quite bring himself to believe what he wants to? He seems to be hoping that other semi-believers will be able to relate to his anxiety, and I'm sure some readers will. But those readers who have already either accepted or rejected the Good News (i.e., the idea that God Is Not A Merciless, Power-Tripping Asshole) might not feel that there is much payoff for us in these 16 lines of fear and trembling.

More specific quibbles:

S1: Is lust really the only sin dividing the just from the unjust? A Pass/Fail grading system of mortal sins, which places a single instance of masturbatory relief on the same Hell-earning level as torture and murder, is not my idea of perfect justice, even if it floated St. Thomas Aquinas's high-functioning autistic boat to categorize sins that way.

S2: The narrator claims "my Judgment will come from Christ above," but within two lines of that statement he seems more concerned about the judgments of others: "The book of deeds I wrote on earth, each page, / will then be seen by all." Does the narrator actually fear people's judgments of him more than God's? If so, that's the most interesting thing in this poem, and I'd far rather read more about that than about the less surprising stuff that follows.

Also in S2: Referring to "the Father, Son, and Dove" strikes me as a touch too flippantly irreverent, if the narrator is seriously worried about his odds of ending up in Hell.

S4: In the final line, the afterlife seems awfully late in the game for God to suddenly "keep me in His love’s protecting shell." What does someone already in Heaven need protection from? And where was that same "protecting shell" when it actually would have been helpful, i.e., when the anxious narrator was back on earth, so worried sick "devouring himself" with fear and self-loathing (as evidenced by the poem's existence) that he might as well have already been in Hell long before death?

Final thought (which need not be answered in this poem) — It puzzles me that musings about Heaven and Hell, such as this one, tend to ignore the idea of resurrection completely. If bodies are irrelevant, and matter doesn't matter after death, then what was the point of Easter? Don't most versions of the Final Judgment envision the dead getting bodies again BEFORE going to either Heaven or Hell (or Purgatory, strangely not mentioned among the Four Last Things)?

I hope some of these ramblings are helpful.

[David Callin]

Hi Glenn. Any poet wants his work to be taken seriously, no matter how successful or unsuccessful it may turn out to be, and I think Chelsea and Julie have done you proud in that respect. I don't really have anything to add to their comments, except that "Father, Son and Dove" - something of your own coinage? - seems a particularly unhappy rhyme-driven expedient.

I did like the use of the simple language throughout, and some of the cadences, but not the overall approach. (I write as a semi-believer, at best, to use Julie's term - and even that probably overstates the case).

Cheers

David

[Max Goodman]

The mirrored cage strikes me as a strong image of Hell.

That hate would manifest as weeds and love as seeds feels apt. The metaphor falters for me because the poem has the seeds a result of growth.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Julie, David, Max, and Hilary—

Julie—I appreciate your detailed and carefully considered critiques. I tried to respond to most of your points to provide some context for my decisions and objectives.

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Hi, Glenn! Aha, you're toying with Frost's interlocking rubaiyat structure for "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" again....
Guilty!

I also wonder who the intended audience is for this. The title suggests familiarity with the Catholic tradition of referring to death, judgment, hell, and heaven as "the Four Last Things," and L1 expects familiarity with Matthew 5:45. But isn't a reader who is already familiar with those prerequisites likely to be even more familiar with the dogmatic concepts mentioned in the poem? So why rehash all this stuff?
I was meditating on “the four last things” and wanted to organize my thoughts and feelings in a visual and arresting way.

S1: Is lust really the only sin dividing the just from the unjust?
It’s the only one that rhymes with “unjust” and “dust.”

S2: The narrator claims "my Judgment will come from Christ above," but within two lines of that statement he seems more concerned about the judgments of others: "The book of deeds I wrote on earth, each page, / will then be seen by all." Does the narrator actually fear people's judgments of him more than God's? If so, that's the most interesting thing in this poem, and I'd far rather read more about that than about the less surprising stuff that follows.
Somewhere in my childhood faith formation, it was impressed upon me that when I died, I would stand before God’s Throne and all my sins would be known by Him and by all people who ever lived. (Yes, I know. As if they would care about my puny sins with their own judgment imminent.) For some reason, it stuck with me. When I read Donne’s “Meditation XVII” in college, where he describes the next life as a place where like books we all lie open, each page read by every other page, I was powerfully affected. That is most of what I was going for here.

Also in S2: Referring to "the Father, Son, and Dove" strikes me as a touch too flippantly irreverent, if the narrator is seriously worried about his odds of ending up in Hell.
I intended no irreverence. I was referring to the Trinity using the most common visual trope in Western art.

S4: In the final line, the afterlife seems awfully late in the game for God to suddenly "keep me in His love’s protecting shell." What does someone already in Heaven need protection from? And where was that same "protecting shell" when it actually would have been helpful, i.e., when the anxious narrator was back on earth, so worried sick "devouring himself" with fear and self-loathing (as evidenced by the poem's existence) that he might as well have already been in Hell long before death?
God’s “protecting shell” (i.e. grace) was available to the narrator while he was alive. This is the point of S1L1. The N is working out his salvation in fear and trembling, as Paul advised him to do. He is aware as a sinner that he is not immune to possible damnation, but he seems to me to live in hope, not self-loathing.

Final thought (which need not be answered in this poem) — It puzzles me that musings about Heaven and Hell, such as this one, tend to ignore the idea of resurrection completely. If bodies are irrelevant, and matter doesn't matter after death, then what was the point of Easter? Don't most versions of the Final Judgment envision the dead getting bodies again BEFORE going to either Heaven or Hell (or Purgatory, strangely not mentioned among the Four Last Things)?
Yes. It is odd that bodies are not specifically mentioned in the “four last things.”

David—I’m sorry if “Father, Son, and Dove” sounded disrespectful to you. I meant it to sound familiar and trusting and to provide a visual referent.

Max—I’m glad you felt the “mirrored cage” image. I originally had “wheat” in place of “seeds” in S1L3, but the internal rhyme was too much to resist.

Hilary—I hope my responses to Chelsea and Julie clarified my thinking.

Thanks again, all for your generous help.

Glenn

[Hilary Biehl]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Hilary—I hope my responses to Chelsea and Julie clarified my thinking.

Sure, but being able to explain where you were coming from doesn't mean it's successful as a poem, right?

I don't mean to be harsh. I think overtly religious poems are often the most difficult to write well. I attempt it only with great fear and trembling ...

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Glenn,

I don't hold any religious beliefs but, to use Julie's words, "I can still appreciate a religious poem without necessarily agreeing with its theological thesis."

Just two thoughts, for what they're worth:
In the last line, I'd prefer protective to protecting.

Secondly, I wondered why you altered the rhyme scheme for the last stanza:
Perhaps the Father, knowing me so well,
will, in His mercy, free me from that cell,
guide me home to Heaven, with Him to dwell,
and keep me in His love’s protecting shell.

I'm not keen on the inversion of "with Him to dwell", especially as you've employed a new word for the 3rd line of each of the other stanzas.

Jayne

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Jayne—

Thanks for sharing your response to my poem. Let me share my thoughts on each of your three points:

1. I chose “protecting” rather than “protective” to emphasize that it is an ongoing action on God’s part rather than simply a quality of the shell or mansion in which the N hopes to dwell.

2. The rhyme scheme is a variation of the rubaiyat form used by Robert Frost in his poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Frost’s poem is in iambic tetrameter and mine is in pentameter. It seems to me to be a form well-suited for eschatological musings. The rhyme scheme in Frost’s poem is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD. The four rhyming lines in the last stanza signal the end of the meditation.

3. I think you make a good point about the inversion. I fixed it with a revision.

I appreciate your helpful critiques.

Glenn