Saintly people, having leaped, now wholly
Grateful for the purifying fires; Love;
This chasm spanned: unbelievers, scoffers,
The busy, pre-occupied, pessimists,
Skeptics of every slick stripe, cynics and
Sick; covertly and overtly sexual,
Self sustainers, successfully self-
Sufficient, the lot of them, their own end,
An untimely end but yet, gifted, oh
Those few final seconds! eternity!
For what the eyes could not conceive! visions!
Exalted and glorified! beauty! those
Lives before are seen as but slow shadows,
Contrasting now with the crisp lines of the
Reality - the realm that has always
Been and always will be: Sweet Afterlife!
A new reality unlike any
Earthly experience. vain life itself
Obscured, opaque like condensation on
Planetary glass, how did we advance?
Crossing this long bridge between death and life?
A life with God? Whoever accepted it,
Who found it within themselves during those
Fleeting, final seconds, to be strangely
Assisted - with a gentle plea - a slight
Act of loving persuasion - an offer
Made in kindness for one more, final chance -
The chance to wholeheartedly step forward,
To feel the heat, and to make the great leap:
Purifying fires of Purgatory!
Gary Edward Geraci