For Easter

[kementari2]

Limbo
by Sister Mary Ada

The ancient greyness shifted
Suddenly and thinned
Like mist upon the moors
Before a wind.
An old, old prophet lifted
A shining face and said:
"He will be coming soon.
The Son of God is dead;
He died this afternoon."

A murmurous excitement stirred
All souls.
They wondered if they dreamed -
Save one old man who seemed
Not

Comments

[flamingophoenix]

What a beautiful poem!

The fact that it is called "Limbo" is kind of...telling, though. Ouch.

[kementari2]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal is with the word Limbo. In Dante's Inferno, where I think it originated, it was a kind of not-so-bad Hell. Here the term seems to be used instead for where everyone was before Jesus descended to the dead and freed them to go to Heaven.

[reversedracula]

It's hell for people who don't have Christ but who influenced much of the moral, ethical, and political content of Christianity. In Dante it's a beautiful earthly type of kingdom, but because there's no Christ, it's separate from God; it's otherwise paradise but with no bridge to the divine. It's only hell on the basis of a significant technicality, unless you're St. Erkenwald.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Erkenwald_(poem)#Theme