THE LEGIONS OF THE CONVINCED
40. THE LEGIONS OF THE CONVINCED:
They all wear the same scratchy sweaters they all walk alike and no hunched-over shoulders are allowed and all they can read is what they read together and yes yes I see them passing me by right along the old wall at St. Luke's where this crazy flower garden on the right days is open to walk through and I do but always in silence in some form of reverential silence the likes of which I can often even enough think about and it has something to do with the particular silence of time and place and the science that keeps things alive and living and going on and I see the people those girls with the gentle faces and exquisite eyes and the men with their calloused hands and broken hearts or so it all seems and I wonder of sadness and why and what it is any of it anyway and the silence wraps me in another silence of its own but what does any of it mean what does anything mean - flowers grow out of garbage cans and tall buildings fall after being meant to stand for ages and window boxes filled with pretty flowers sag and tumble down while both the rich and the poor alike DIE together though in so their different ways - so even in the middle ring of the middle ring of the middle circus tent there is loss and sadness and the awareness of death (a DEATH by the way even Gilgamesh himself could not avert and OH if the works of man could talk!) and if you want to sing of the song ON HIGH then go right ahead (I’ll let you) and prattle every verse you wish but WATCH watch the middle prairie ladies in their denim and gingham and floral-print dresses watch them gather for praise and with their praise condemn everything they find not praiseworthy SO perhaps the senseless rule the day the ones without thought seek to control the thought and the vast myriad allegiances of the many are in hock to the EVIL and the dead and the forsakers of all things righteous YET STILL THEY GO ON like gangs of blood-letting minions of darkness and drinkers of spirits and those who spit wine back into the cup after tasting its flavor for blood for the world the world is RULED (the crippled preacher man was saying from his chair) “by evidences of evil at every turn and by the legions of the convinced who worship at his altar” and then the kid the guy with the violin case is returning from his small recital where he played some Sunday Bach for the assembled and he stops to talk and he says 'yes it's me again seems like we see each other often enough in this very situation but unlike me you're always on the outside and just once I do wish I could be with you instead of inside insufferably playing righteous music for the righteous souls and I really wonder why they're there even before they think about it I wonder - they already think themselves perfect and Heaven-bound so why oh why do they matter and why expend the Sunday morning energy for this when all they need to do is stay out here and look?' and I said 'yeah but too they're glad they have ears to listen to the likes of what you do for them I bet' and he smiled and said 'thanks I hope that's right' and we parted and from that point each time I saw him in the same scene it went between unremarked but understood how Heaven is a place that - if you're not already there - there's really no getting to it you remain unaware.
They all wear the same scratchy sweaters they all walk alike and no hunched-over shoulders are allowed and all they can read is what they read together and yes yes I see them passing me by right along the old wall at St. Luke's where this crazy flower garden on the right days is open to walk through and I do but always in silence in some form of reverential silence the likes of which I can often even enough think about and it has something to do with the particular silence of time and place and the science that keeps things alive and living and going on and I see the people those girls with the gentle faces and exquisite eyes and the men with their calloused hands and broken hearts or so it all seems and I wonder of sadness and why and what it is any of it anyway and the silence wraps me in another silence of its own but what does any of it mean what does anything mean - flowers grow out of garbage cans and tall buildings fall after being meant to stand for ages and window boxes filled with pretty flowers sag and tumble down while both the rich and the poor alike DIE together though in so their different ways - so even in the middle ring of the middle ring of the middle circus tent there is loss and sadness and the awareness of death (a DEATH by the way even Gilgamesh himself could not avert and OH if the works of man could talk!) and if you want to sing of the song ON HIGH then go right ahead (I’ll let you) and prattle every verse you wish but WATCH watch the middle prairie ladies in their denim and gingham and floral-print dresses watch them gather for praise and with their praise condemn everything they find not praiseworthy SO perhaps the senseless rule the day the ones without thought seek to control the thought and the vast myriad allegiances of the many are in hock to the EVIL and the dead and the forsakers of all things righteous YET STILL THEY GO ON like gangs of blood-letting minions of darkness and drinkers of spirits and those who spit wine back into the cup after tasting its flavor for blood for the world the world is RULED (the crippled preacher man was saying from his chair) “by evidences of evil at every turn and by the legions of the convinced who worship at his altar” and then the kid the guy with the violin case is returning from his small recital where he played some Sunday Bach for the assembled and he stops to talk and he says 'yes it's me again seems like we see each other often enough in this very situation but unlike me you're always on the outside and just once I do wish I could be with you instead of inside insufferably playing righteous music for the righteous souls and I really wonder why they're there even before they think about it I wonder - they already think themselves perfect and Heaven-bound so why oh why do they matter and why expend the Sunday morning energy for this when all they need to do is stay out here and look?' and I said 'yeah but too they're glad they have ears to listen to the likes of what you do for them I bet' and he smiled and said 'thanks I hope that's right' and we parted and from that point each time I saw him in the same scene it went between unremarked but understood how Heaven is a place that - if you're not already there - there's really no getting to it you remain unaware.
posted by gary j. introne at 6:14 PM
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