Across The Night Sea: A Sequel To A Barge Mysterious.... By Emmanuel George Cefai Poem by Daniel Brick

from A BARGE MYSTERIOUS IN THE THICK OF NIGHT
byEmmanuel George Cefai
A barge mysterious in the thick of night
Sailed slowly to the sober shore
Beneath the ramparts of the dreaming fort...
Whence is the barge coming in the night?
Whence did its journey start?
No reply came - and none in that still barge
Appeared to reply or move or breathe:
So horrid thin the stillness of thin barge.

The Old Mariner's Revelation:
Yes, I admit I made promises
to reveal what I know. I hope
I am right that NOW is the time
to fulfill those promises, especially
since the other witnesses are dead or
reduced to mumbling silence. I am pledged
to reveal to your world of duties and
daylight the account of our Night Sea Voyage
to a hidden place of Threshold...

Why did that Mysterious Barge choose
this port form its apparitions? Why did
its ghostly captain leave behind charts
with exact coordinates? Most of all,
what daring possessed twenty-three young men
to hazard such a dangerous journey? I was
the first to feel compelled and convinced
the others to follow my lead. My head was
on fire with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.

We launched our ship from a secret natural
harbor, set sail in the middle of the night
on steady nocturnal currents, followed the path
of a huge cloud of sea fog, only partially
concealing the Mysterious Barge from our fixed gaze.
But suddenly men grew tired, completely worn out,
some collapsed where they stood onto the hard deck
and curled their bodies into rigid sleep.
Others dozed at their stations, shook themselves
awake only to fall into a deeper sleep. Within an hour
only four of were awake, and fear crept into our souls
when our ship came a halt just a few yards from
the stationary barge, no longer covered in fog
but lighted in a garish black light that slowly,
inexorably covered our ship, too. I cannot speak
for the other three, but my fear was dispelled and
I felt strangely lifted within my mind. What dispelled
my fear? It was the presence of the ghostly captain
on our ship. One of my comrades began to shake uncontrollably,
the apparition touched his head with his long-fingered
hand and the sailor was immediately calmed, even smiling.
His voice I heard from some deep recess in my mind, or
should I say soul? 'Fear nothing, mortal men. The great war
between Heaven and Hell has ended. My comrades and I, once
slaves to the Evil Lord, have overthrown him. We have bowed
in worship of God before his angel ambassadors. They have
pacified Hell and we have surrendered our power to do Evil.
You mortals do not understand Eternity and we immortals
do not understand Time. How and when the coming cosmic peace
occurs, we cannot tell you. Await patiently the arrival of
the angel ambassadors to earth, pray and rejoice in your world
and we now do in ours. And now you will witness the first
of many Ascensions, for the denizens of Hell, your brothers
and sisters, whom we seduced into damnation, are being taken
to their Purgatorial Ordeal. We are fulfilling our first mission
of the Lord God, Creator of All Things Good and True and Beautiful! '

A thousand faces were released at once. They floated slowly
upward, gently rolling in a circle as they rose into the sky.
Their eyes were shining from some hidden source of light
not visible to our mortal eyes. We were transfixed, we stared
at them for the duration of their ascent. They looked down
on us with compassionate eyes, the tenderest expressions
flitting across their features, and I was speechless
in wonder that so much love could radiate from human faces.
It seemed our vigilant watching was itself part of this
ceremony unfolding above us. The last thing we saw were
their eyes, even more strangely illuminated, blinking
again and again, as if they could not believe what they
were seeing, as if the wonder of it transcended even
their exalted state of grace. And then it was over,
the vision closed. The nineteen who been asleep
awoke, having dreamed what the four of us had witnessed.
The Mysterious Barge and its ghostly captain were vanished.
And our ship was surging forward with propitious winds
and friendly currents. Once again, we were just sailors
in a goodly ship, on a vast ocean under the pure light of morning.
The twenty-two men started debating what had happened, then
they argued without listening to each other, some came to blows.
But I remained calm. I knew then Reign of Heaven had just begun,
and we now had entered an Eternity that would descend to Earth -
in God's good time! All praise to God and his Angels and Saints!