And then an attempt to widen the notion of the afterworld,
to make a space that is not officially made.
It's called "Forever."
No doubt, it's a comfort to believe
that the good, who are luckless here, are lucky elsewhere.
That their enemies here, triumphant, later lose out.
But even in Dante's inspired version,
the afterlife is too imbued with notions of the eternal
to be appropriate for time bomb creatures like us.
Yes, for the sake of justice, the violent
who get away with murder on Earth
deserve to suffer a heat more fiery than the coals of rage
that burned within them.
The betrayers of friends and patrons
deserve a chill colder than the ice in their arctic hearts.
But won't their victims--
the pillaged, and trampled, and rolled to the wall--
safe at last in the balmy realm of the blessed,
grow uneasy, eventually--
assuming they still remember the world
they came from, the world of limits--
with the thought of their oppressors in endless torment.
Won't they decide a determinate stay is long enough?
It's not for us to object if Abel throws down
a rope at last to Cain, if Jesus takes Judas by the hand.
So hell, if imagination wins out,
ought to be slowly emptying.
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.