Autumn Testament #12
The wish to climb a ladder to the loft
Of God dies hard in us. The angels Jacob saw
Were not himself. Bramble is what grows best
Out of this man-scarred earth, and I don’t chop it back
Till the fruit have ripened. Yesterday I picked one
And it was bitter in my mouth,
And all the ladder-climbing game is rubbish
Like semen tugged away for no good purpose
Between the blanket and the bed. I heard once
A priest rehearse the cause of his vocation,
‘To love God, to serve man.’ The ladder-rungs did not lessen
An ounce of his damnation by loneliness,
And Satan whistles to me, ‘You! You again,
Old dog! Have you come to drop more dung at Jerusalem?’
Copyright Credit: James K. Baxter, "Autumn Testament #12" from Selected Poems. Copyright © 2010 by The James K. Baxter Trust. Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, Ltd.
Source: Collected Poems (Oxford University Press, Ltd., 1979)