The Book of Ephraim (C)

Correct but cautious, that first night, we asked Our visitor’s name, era, habitat. EPHRAIM came the answer. A Greek Jew Born AD 8 at XANTHOS Where was that? In Greece WHEN WOLVES & RAVENS WERE IN ROME (Next day the classical dictionary yielded A Xanthos on the Asia Minor Coast.) NOW WHO ARE U We told him. ARE U XTIANS We guessed so. WHAT A COZY CATACOMB Christ had WROUGHT HAVOC in his family ENTICED MY FATHER FROM MY MOTHERS BED (I too had issued from a broken home– The first of several facts to coincide.) Later a favorite of TIBERIUS Died AD 36 on CAPRI throttled By the imperial guard for having LOVED THE MONSTERS NEPHEW (sic) CALIGULA Rapidly he went on––changing the subject? A long incriminating manuscript Boxed in bronze lay UNDER PORPHYRY Beneath the deepest excavations. He Would help us find it, but we must please make haste Because Tiberius wanted it destroyed. Oh? And where, we wondered of the void, Was Tiberius these days? STAGE THREE Why was he telling us? He’d overheard us Talking to SIMPSON Simpson? His LINK WITH EARTH His REPRESENTATIVE A feeble nature All but bestial, given to violent Short lives––one ending lately among flames In an Army warehouse. Slated for rebirth But not in time, said Ephraim, to prevent The brat from wasting, just now at our cup, Precious long distance minutes––don’t hang up! So much facetiousness––well, we were young And these were matters of life and death–dismayed us. Was he a devil? His reply MY POOR INNOCENTS left the issue hanging fire. As it flowed on, his stream-of-consciousness Deepened. There was a buried room, a BED WROUGHT IN SILVER I CAN LEAD U THERE IF If? U GIVE ME What? HA HA YR SOULS (Another time he’ll say that he misread Our innocence for insolence that night, And meant to scare us.) Our eyes met. What if . . . The blood’s least vessel hoisted jet-black sails. Five whole minutes we were frightened stiff ––But after all, we weren’t that innocent. The Rover Boys at thirty, still red-blooded Enough not to pass up an armchair revel And pure enough at heart to beat the devil, Entered the spirit, so to speak, And said they’d leave for Capri that same week. Pause. Then, as though we’d passed a test, Ephraim’s whole manner changed. He brushed aside Tiberius and settled to the task Of answering, like an experienced guide, Those questions we had lacked the wit to ask. Here on Earth––huge tracts of information Have gone into these capsules flavorless And rhymed for easy swallowing––on Earth We’re each the REPRESENTATIVE of a PATRON ––Are there that many patrons? YES O YES These secular guardian angels fume and fuss For what must seem eternity over us. It is forbidden them to INTERVENE Save, as it were, in the entr'acte between One incarnation and another. Back To school for the disastrously long vac Goes the soul its patron crams yet once Again with savoir vivre. Will the dunce Never––by rote, the hundredth time round––learn What ropes make fast that point of no return, A footing on the lowest of NINE STAGES Among the curates and the minor mages? Patrons at last ourselves, an upward notch Our old ones move THEYVE BORN IT ALL FOR THIS And take delivery from the Abyss Of brand-new little savage souls to watch. One difference: with every rise in station Comes a degree of PEACE FROM REPRESENTATION ––Odd phrase, more like a motto for abstract Art––or for Autocracy––In fact Our heads are spinning––From the East a light–– BUT U ARE TIRED MES CHERS SWEET DREAMS TOMORROW NIGHT