Monday, May 4, 2015

St. Michael Weighing Souls (Kartner Meister), Sonnet #242






















No soul weighs more than the flesh it impounds.
It grows with time, then begins to vanish,
Looks less like a soldier than how one sounds,
Marching off. God of beginnings, Ganesh,
Blasts his trumpet at the birth of the child,
As Michael weighs its soul for the first time.
The devil scoffs, his self-righteousness riled,
Skulks nearby, shields his eyes from the sublime.
The child, perfectly weightless, is handed
To Buddha, and with one hand slap, branded.
Eighty years on, he again stands naked
In the balance, whispers a list of seers,
Of those who loved his soul for its own sake,
Then, like devils long ago, disappears.

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