It’s a lost cause, the effort to make heaven and hell
Eternal, undone by the very creatures
The two establishments are meant to house,
Whose natural habitat is the stream of time.
Yes, it’s a comfort to hope that the good
Who are luckless here are lucky elsewhere,
That their enemies, here triumphant,
Later lose out. Let the violent suffer
A heat more fiery than the rage within them.
Let the betrayers of trust endure a chill
Even more icy than their arctic hearts.
Still, sooner or later, their victims—
The pillaged and trampled and rolled to the wall—
Safe at last in the balmy realm of the blessed,
Will grow uneasy with the thought of their oppressors
In endless torment. Sooner or later they’ll decide
That the sentence already served is long enough.
No one should be surprised when Abel
Finally throws down a rope to Cain, when Jesus
Stoops to take Judas by the hand.
So hell, as imagination construes it, is doomed
To dwindle away, and then heaven as well,
As the saints return to earth to help the sinners
Learn what damage they can undo
If they give themselves to the effort,
And what damage they’ll have to leave as is.