Raptor Imperator

A feathered thing, some kind of raptor
Nests on my head,
And one of his dread talons
Is a thought
“I am smaller than once I was”
Another talon another thought:
“I fade, on days like this”
Days which, one after another,
Do constitute a certain fading
And shrinking

I’m thinking,
clear now, foggy now,
Thinking of the veritable Colossus
That was my potential
In more youthful fancies

Eventual, even in strength
Would have been
The re-contextualization
Of my younger self-importance
Hopefully gracious and patient and slow

But what has befallen
Was viscously abrupt,
The landing and settling
Of a meddling beast,
Presiding
An apathetic steward of my strength
More of a bandit, really

So now even the dream of
a much more modest monolith
Is rather out of reach,
At this rate, in this story

So – worried – I appeal to the story
I was given in my youth
That God is good

I thought I knew that God moves mountains
Now a fat mountain on my shoulders
Doesn’t move
But entrenches and complains
like an entitled occupying militance

I’ve weathered pained hours outstretched
on the floor
“Cruciform” if you will
My own small internal persecution underway
Small but large –
You understand?

It’s heavy like invasion, to me

My feathered imperator,
Installing an exponent on gravity
The cylinder of which encompasses
Only me

And by extension of my arms,
also my family
Since I have reached out to them
And lean on them

Oh I interject with this wonder,
I am unresentfully sheltered by a saintly circle
Provided by God –
Upheld by the Father
A wonder truly

Yet how long Oh Lord?

Am I a diminishing entity, Father
Farther and farther slipping?
Am I as I feel,
Lessened?
Can you see me under the shade
Of the boorish giant on my shoulders?

I talk about “my youth”
These days, as a prior thing
A comrade I had and lost
And have already grieved

As though I’ve resigned to disability
What if that is my lot?

For reasons largely unknown
And largely beyond my control
I am impaired

Strength I took for granted once
Is now arrested at the border
And tolled heavily and inconsistently
By my imperator

Before strength reaches me
She has been mercilessly taxed
I receive her as a survivor
Much harrowed

But I’ve learned to harbour her patiently
Asylum for the victim of imperial whims
Compassion for the runaway
As you are, Dear
Do only what you can

You thought you came to save
And now you must be saved
You will be treasured
And not accused for arriving decrepit

Forget that you came to build Jerusalem
Be attended now,
Amending comes, maybe
For now just rest

It is enough to breathe in this moment
Just breathe
Enough
Enough

Will “enough” ring in heaven?
Does Yahweh, say, to a shrinking man
“You are enough”?

If he does,
Does that entail his endorsement
Of my raptors’ oppressions
Am I resigned, by God?

Or is there an acceptance of my condition
That does not entail my consignment to it?

I suppose I and my humanity
And my whole earth
Arrive at the gates of the Kingdom of God

Like a harrowed refugee,
Taken in then, en-citizened, embraced

And attended kindly
For however long needed

No I am not resigned to diminishment
By apathetic, iron talons
But neither am I devaluated
In the eyes my creator
For the extent to which my strength
And I
Are less than what we once were

Even should I only age and shrink
From this point on
Even if elderliness arrived for me early
An early on-set fade

Still would I be cherished
By God
And no less valued

And Jesus Christ would suffer with me there
Under the fat and smothering
Oppression of this withering pain
It’s own kind of occupation

Occupied I am by forces without mercy
And the talons of wanton grasping
By the hired hand of entropy,
And it is much my secret,
for the striking hand
Is a nesting bird
Enfolded in my chest
And sprawled over my shoulders
But quite invisible to others

But deeper still
Within me
then this occupation
Is God abiding in me

And the seed of eternal life
Like white fire in my soul
Warrants contented Triumph

Let me fade as far as a man can fade
Yet shall I come out from under the
Shroud of this age’s small kings
Rouges, and parasites

All the diminishing forces
And enslavements a groaning age
Have no permanent hold

On one sealed for the company of God
And one in whom dwells
His very Spirit

The present occupation is vicious and cruel
And real,
Christ knows it’s breaking
Enthralling
Thrashing
Diminishing power

But the in-dwelling of God
Is patient and compassionate
Long-suffering and courageous
Complete and generous

And writes the final story

So even should I be diminished
Hidden, and afflicted, obscured , disempowered

Yet shall I be known and treasured
And in time

Ascend out from it all
I am more, than a product of oppression,
Of any kind
And not because I become the oppressor
The “winner” in imperial vernacular,
Not because I play this era’s scarcities games
And seize esteem,
As if is something that needs to wrangled
Out the jaws of oblivion
At the cost of others
No

I am more than a product of oppression,
Of any kind
Because I am counted worthy
Of eternal attendance
At the lavish table
Of the feast of the lamb

Where no one cares to lord over another,
Where all are cherished and cherish abundantly ,
All are celebrated and all celebrate gratefully
And the banner over us is love

My raptor will have wrought
It’s ravages in the order
Of it’s authority
Only
Until the very fountain
Of life’s itself
Thrusts me out from under
the mountain of my oppression
Blasting back the claws of decay
Dethrones my cruel imperator
Great the day
I join the firstborn of new eternity
Revived and called a triumph
For indeed I was won from the claws
Of death
And marked more definitively
By the blood of Christ who suffers
Than by the Empire that causes to suffer

I belong to the resurrection
The hired hand, small prince, fat raptor
Fades in the oblivion
It had tried to create within me,
The breaker, broken
I
Belong to the resurrection
I am not undone