Page 26 - Packing for the Apocalypse

INVITATION
POEM 12
When it comes to dreading the darkness, Dante, I’m finding, is a fitting companion. His tour of Hell is full of heady meetings, Shades in pain competing for his attention, Visions of sins that shock the soul awake.
“Those in life who did no wrong yet knew No praise” made me want to ask: Oh why Should there be a place in Hell for them? Would not a kind God say: There, there. What you have not gained on Earth I will Bestow upon you in Heaven. Would that Not make this vale of tears seem better? Make you take up your cross and follow Him? A promise so appealing. Many have.
But for Dante, as far as he is shown, this Is not to be their fate. They tear their hair. Their voices rise and wail in pure despair. Their living alone has written their fate in Stone. Dante, in his effort to understand, Finds, however gruesome what he views, That to suffer in advance, before the soul Departs the world, opens up an envelope Of grace. To find a place to stand and be. To embrace a humble ground in which to Face himself. And an invitation to repent.
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