Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper
All seeing eyes
Guardian of the gate,
Sat atop
the stairway of skins.
Sewn together
with satyr hair.
Counting the days,
ticking them off
in a parchment book
with a pen on a string
twined with spider thread.
Sits in the sunlight
and watches the workers
to-ing and fro-ing
like ants on a hill
with their own little tasks,
while he has no legs,
just sits in a chair
weighing up souls
as they pass.
Never knowing
he holds their fate
in the palm of his hands.
The wheels squeak
counterpoints
to the clambering footsteps
that ascend to his eyrie
and beg for forgiveness.
A cleansing absolution
that will let them enter
the kingdom he guards
with his solemn wisdom.
He opens the book
at a page full of notes
with their name at the top
and replies in a whisper
“not you - not today’.
And they slip
and they slide
back to the fires
that wait down below
for those refused entry
to the tower of Nimrod.
Inspired By: photograph by Richard Nixon (c) Rich Pictures
