Sheol

By Richard Mather

One man speaks for Empire,

another for Kingdom.

And the one who belongs

to neither rises tall, a cedar

spared the felling.

Gentlemen, he said.

We find ourselves in a new era,

an era in which Sin has made

a great leap forward.

*

I will go down to Sheol

forever mourning,

the place where Korah

and his men are buried.

To forbid murder means

to have no contact with corpses.

The dead speak

to us, to one another.

They remind us

that Sin and Death

look the same from

where they lie.

Art thou also become weak as we?

Art thou become like unto us?

Here, under the world,

where men and angels

are felled and fallen.

*

Sin carves the body

as it marks the soul.

on a burning body

the word חֶטְא in red.

Sin makes its mark,

its cut is plain to see.