- Variant Reading on Heaven:Passion Sunday In honor of Ai (October 21, 1947-March 20, 2010)
How can I be certain that the placeI reach in dreams or after my deathIs heaven and not some holding-penFor the eternal slaughter of miscreants?
I wish there were a foolproof wayTo know where I am every day, if light,Which is all color, leads all directionsOr toward a singular gorgeous island
On which the answer to all this chaosIs perpetual certainty. And yet heavenCan't be so predictable, so evenly made,That all the drama is hugged away.
Heaven should also be the best of hell,The ring of passion, and best of allCompletely filled with the memoryOf all suffering, the bones' bright ache,
The soul's days divided from peaceOr equally from the boredom withinIts settled seas. I want to see it coming,The heaven that is as unsettled
And unsettling as life, where our angelsSpark the liquor of mild disorder,And the lips she licks could be for me,Could be the lost origin of all light.
Philip Lee Williams is the author of fifteen books including most recently The Flower Seeker: An Epic Poem of William Bartram (Mercer University Press, 2010); his novel, A Distant Flame (Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), won the Michael Shaara Prize. His books have been translated and published in France, Germany, Sweden, and Japan. He lives in Georgia. phil@franklin.uga.edu