[photograph: Jack Ross (2006)]Refrigerium
the damned have holidays – excursions … to this country
– C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Acc. to St. ThomasIt came to me
Aquinaslike a light
the smallest painin the centre of my vision
blanking outin Purgatory
allis greater than
but the peripheriesthe greatest on earth
Screamingwalking up Rangitoto
I buried my facestopping
in my teacher’s robeswinded
halfway upThe morning! The morning!
to read out versesI am caught by the morning
to the scoria& I am a ghost
it being relieveddown by the wharf
howeverwe waited
by the certitudefor the ferryman
to take usof salvation
to the asphodelsestablishing Holy Souls
the farther shores ofin deepest
[Portions of this text were sampled from C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce: A Dream (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1945) 60-61; 117; & the entry on “Purgatory” from The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross (London: Oxford University Press, 1957) 1126].
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