Midgard
(a waking dream)
I am on the second floor
Hell is quiet beneath
My Middle-Earth
While heaven rages above
Is that the war in heaven?
Is hell quiet now because it’s empty?
If so, the story goes
A third of heaven’s host
Will fall to occupy the deeper realm
With Satan as its ruler
The revenant of those who sought,
Sought what?
To take over?
Simply to protest?
To bargain for a will
Like that awarded humans?
We were your agents, Lord
Certainly, we would have managed
Better with a choice
In how to serve
A better talent might have been missed
A calling other than created
Sorry, it could happen
Might we have the chance
To find out who we are?
No?
That’s bitter
We are better than the rest
The scion of light says so
How must we, then, be heard?
Where shall we go that you might see?
There are the plains
Splayed by your fingers
We will practice farther below
Then emerge to tussle with the best
The ones loved more
We’ll find out who wins
If your lower creatures love us
Then you should withdraw into
Two-thirds of heaven left
More than enough
Since perfection
And the servile need
Nothing but a pin
Or a nail
C L Couch
Image by Moshe Harosh from Pixabay
(detail)
clcouch123 
March 6, 2020 at 5:49 pm
You are such an intellectual, it seems, Christopher. I didn’t know anything about Midgard, or Norse mythology. Yes, heaven, hell, the tussle, the struggle. So many questions and so few answers….
March 6, 2020 at 7:12 pm
Sorry. Maybe it all starts with Tolkien who would have known about Midgard, the name for Earth in Norse mythology that means “middle Earth.” Tolkien would popularize the middle-Earth part. And he’d know that the Norse notion of middle-Earth is that is lies between heaven above and hell below–and the gods and demons battle on Earth to find out who wins the cosmic war. Which might sound something like Christianity now. God and the devil are at war sometimes through us (it seems, at least) for earthy and heavenly victory. In Jewish mythology (popularized in Christianity) is the story that an earlier war in heaven cast out a third of the heavenly host with its leader Satan. And I got to thinking about all that while contemplating my literal second-story (middle-story) situation. Yes, that is too intellectual.
Have a pleasant weekend, anyway, Cathy!
March 10, 2020 at 12:47 pm
No apologies necessary, Christopher. I certainly don’t expect poets to stoop to my intellectual abilities! 🙂 It did seem much like Christianity when I looked it up, and from your poem learned much especially about the one-third being cast down with Satan. Thanks for your poetic imaginings. 🙂