Peter Galen Massey

Moses Before The Parting of The Red Sea

What voice did I hear that made me walk back into
The mouth of death and defy its teeth? For whose
Freedom? I was already free, and yet I returned to
Mumble arguments at a man unmoved by hail and
Darkness. When his son died, I hesitated. To tell the
Body he held was punishment for his faults struck my
Conscience. What did I know? There are griefs too
Deep for judgment, either of God or men. But I had
My responsibilities. I had made promises to people
Who never asked I make them. So I won our release.
It was only three mornings of this new uncertain life
Before we heard the roaring of wheels, the clashing
Of armor. They are racing over the hot stone ground
To claim us back. We have no weapons to fight and
No direction to flee. And it was I who brought us here.
I will stand at the slip of the sea, throw my arms wide
In command. What is faith – foolishness or despair or
The refusal to surrender all that was never enough?

Acts of the Apostles

I know you’re a preacher from your black coat,
The lady said and I smiled and told her Almost.
To what strange lands might we fly if I spread
My black wings, from what strange texts might
I speak if I took the pulpit? Would I please her
Dancing my exuberant heresies on the Rock of
Ages? Perhaps. Her face said she might take
My mysteries for faith, my wonders for reasons,
My beauties for redemption. She might grant me
A God who is all whirlwind and no ash heap, who
Suffered so He could say We are the same now.

Or would she ask me What about love dear? and
Smile at my blank look. Love is simple as a child.
You shuffle Her to one side with your words and
Your rules and your thinking. Then I would sweep
Off my preacher’s coat and settle it on the majesty
Of her stooped shoulders.

The Hermit in Her Retirement

Come sit down dear and have a cozy chat.
Tell me your news. Your news! I kept God’s
Secrets all those years. Do you think I can’t
Keep yours? Listen to that wind. Cold. It
Makes my joints ache just to think of my
Stone hut those long years in that weather.
If we both smile they will bring us more tea.
Now, how are the kisses of your stout man?
I don’t know what makes the young think
The old haven’t heard about these things.
I knew about kisses as a girl though I called
Them Sin – kisses and many other things –
And I ran away to the wild. There is no Sin
In the sea, no Sin in birds, no Sin in the sky.
I believed all I renounced was discipline. I’ve
Come to think it was secret pride, and that
St. Paul did a job of work on us. No regrets.
I would welcome a pair of warm arms now,
Though who could embrace me here without
Scandal I don’t know. I’ll tell you my secret.
I’m not sure if I’ve lost my vocation or found
It at last. There may be as much immanence
In that bag of crisps as the warm riot of the
Stars on a summer night. All that is good is
Good.

How The Day Began

I dreamed I was young and could sing. My
Voice not this three-note croak but mighty
Sound and how easily my soul soared from
My lips into the vibrant air. Then I woke up
And I was old and had no song, just these
Words, grey dawn and no soft sleep again,
Grief so strong that even I thought the old
Coconut of my heart would split and spill
Its little milk. Outside, the trees in shadow
Were mystery and the traffic noise mystery;
Mystery my hands and mystery my teeth;
Mystery the tasks of the day and mystery
All the days gone in mourning. The radio
Broke into a pitch and I rose to silence it.
Might be a cup of coffee is the fix? And
I heard in my mind my grandmother say
No complaining and my father Find a use.
My mother said Be kind and my wife said
Remember your mother. God said I made
You a soldier who goes to war with himself.
Call Me Son of a Bitch and ask My blessing.

Evensong, King’s College Chapel

Our days are longer than glass, longer than
Stone, longer than light and air, longer than
The waters of this softly flowing river that will
Pass, rise, fall, and pass again while we speak
These words, sing these words. Our days are
Longer than prayer or scholarship, than ambition
Or boasting or riot or sleeping or waking or food
Or kisses or the bright exalting summer of youth.
They are longer than sorrow or rejoicing or love
Or bones turned to powder. Our steps trace and
Retrace the paths of echoing generations, and
We are indistinguishable among them. For a
Thousand years has the black-haired girl sat in
Choir and stared black-eyed, and for a thousand
More will she sit and stare. We will speak these
Words, sing these words. For centuries the man
Has sat dry in his faith, and for centuries more
Will he sit. We will speak these words, sing these
Words. The dry man will find his faith and the
Black-eyed girl will look up. We have no need
For rushing. With our words and our singing
We make this glass and this stone the great
Still center of creation. The long grass moves
From the breath of our words. The trailing
Willows sway from the breath of our singing.
The river flows softly while we speak and we
Sing. These words and this singing pass from
Mouth to mouth and their living is continuous.
We do not matter at all. Our broken ineluctable
Particulars are translated into these words and
This singing, and we are made whole by them.
When the windows are blank cold darkness we
Speak. When the stones glow skin warm we sing.
There is confidence in our words and endurance
In our singing. The softly flowing river passes.
We speak and we sing.

If you came here looking for poems about conventional faith in a conventional god, you have come to the wrong shop.

I don’t have much use for conventional faith because it runs away from the essential problem. Which is that a candid reading of the available facts suggests we are born out of nothingness. Then we experience a series of arbitrary events, some pleasant, many others very unpleasant indeed. Then we die, either too soon or not soon enough, after which we wink into nothingness again. That’s it. It’s over. And none of it meant a damn thing.

Religion tells us a better story, one in which our suffering has meaning and an essence of our lives continues after death. This is a fine story and I believe it in a non-dogmatic way and I have no problem with people who believe a version of it. With two exceptions.

The first are those people who believe their faith precludes them from confronting the terrors of the void. Not because it makes their faith brittle. That’s their problem. But because it turns them into death-obsessed nihilists. Which makes them our problem.
One way to confront the mystery of suffering and death is to become an agent of suffering and death and gain a measure of control by becoming their cause. Holy warriors fighting holy wars for example.

Now if these folks would go off someplace quiet and slaughter each other while leaving the rest of us out it, that would be fine. But they usually aren’t so discriminating.

A related group of death-obsessed nihilists are those excited for the apocalypse. Parts of the apocalypse sound nice. God sweeps us off to a better place where we are happy and don’t suffer and won’t die and don’t have to go to work or clean the house or pay bills.

The problem is that God isn’t taking all of us with him. He plans to take just a few members of his club, which somehow always includes the person discussing the apocalypse, while inflicting unbearable suffering on the rest of us, first on earth and later in hell.

Fans of the apocalypse say they love us and feel sorry we are going to hell, but they also seem eager for it to happen. Which makes me doubt the sincerity of their love.

Once again, if these folks celebrated their beliefs and left the rest of us out of it, that would be fine. The problem is their beliefs often affect our lives by ignoring climate change (because the earth is about to end anyhow). Or ignoring Covid (because the Rapture is about to happen and if they die before it comes, they’re still going to heaven). Or getting excited about wars in the Middle East because that is a sign the apocalypse is on its way. And so on.

Obviously, these two flavors of nihilists are not mutually exclusive. They can overlap and often do.

The second exception are those persons who use religion to control people. This statement is proven by the entire history of the world but I’ll provide two examples. The first is that the true successor to the Roman Empire was the Catholic Church. For centuries, the church fought with secular rulers for control of the western world. Today it is merely a wealthy multinational conglomerate with a spiritual side hustle and a PR (but not a moral) problem with child sexual abuse.

The second is the current rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States. The fact that this movement has little to do with Christianity, that the people inside the movement don’t care about Christianity, and that the people outside the movement aren’t surprised they don’t care, tells you all you need to know.

At this point, you might ask if I think religion has any legitimate function. It does. Religion exists to reconcile us to the mysteries of life. The characters in these poems are seeking that reconciliation, which is always tentative, contingent, changing, drawing close and pulling away, never settling on an answer. At their best, these characters contemplate a brief life of meaningless suffering lived between two voids and say that it is good.

Another way to say this is that religion works best when it embraces the purposes of art, which also seeks to reconcile us to the mysteries of life, just replacing the stamp of divine approval with the persuasion of individual talent.

This makes artists the mirror-opposite of the death nihilists and the power hungry. We embrace beauty, mystery, wonder, and love and gain a measure of control by creating them. And we invite other people to embrace our visions, if it suits them, rather than slaughtering or controlling them. The world would be a better place if it were run by the poets.