Jock Stein: “Heaven To Go”
On this Holy Saturday, we feature another selection from Jock Stein. As before he offers some introductory thoughts to his newest poem then closes with a summary synthesis.
As always, thank you, Jock! And keep the lines coming!
Like not a few elderly people, I get impatient when people invent new expressions for old ones, and I recognize the curmudgeonly complaint, “If it wiz guid enough fer yer faither . . .”
I’m thinking of the advert you get in shops and garages, ‘Food to go’ which presumably means exactly what we used to mean by ‘take-away’. But after a swallow, I thought I could use the idea to introduce some ‘take-away thoughts’ about heaven, simply by looking round our sitting room, so:
Heaven To Go
‘Heaven in ordinarie . . . something understood’
-George Herbert
‘What’s the go of it?’
-James Clerk Maxwell as a boy
So how does heaven work, beyond the harps,
the golden streets, the clouds, beyond
St Peter at the gate, the flats, the sharps?
I recall the Emigrant who said,
‘I’ll show you heaven: don’t look up,
look round about you, like a child, instead.’
Curious, I put it to the test;
I sent my senses scribbling, free
of prejudice; sat back with interest.
Heaven is the corner of this room,
the cupboard where the memories
put those we cherish back into the womb
to be reborn when time is riddled, good
is salvaged, and the honesty
stuck in that vase is round the neighbourhood.
Heaven is that picture on the wall,
a woman watching, hands in prayer,
a kettle on the fire, and most of all
she wonders how to offer her poor life
and circumstance to God, who might
transform the world as well as that goodwife.
Heaven is that carpet, rather blown
by several thousand steps and scrapes,
ready for its colours to be shown.
Heaven’s a Villa-Lobos sound, a hand
which plucks the magic from a string
and scatters it to Venus and beyond.
Heaven is that pile of clothes, whose hope
is something more than landfill, longing
to be fit to wrap up prince and pope.
Heaven is that stack of books, some broken-
backed, some still unread – to be
re-written in a language not yet spoken.
Heaven is that couch, no longer pretty,
yet quite sure that, reupholstered,
she’ll be kosher, cushion royalty.
Heaven is that sweet geranium,
wondering what unknown scents
would fill and fire a future cranium.
Heaven is a phone which knows the place
of fellowship and silence, a line
hot charged with wonder, getting through: that’s grace.
Heaven is a plain brass ring of five
lamps, not of six or four, because
all art needs something different to thrive
and like that woman here beside me
makes it new each day, so that
I know how heaven’s quite extraordinary.
Happy Easter when it comes – but you should get this on Holy Saturday, which is where we live so much of the time, somewhere between disaster and glory.
-Jock Stein