The Coming of the Magi

We barely remembered the former times

For our times had ceased to run,

Were wiped as clean as our memories

In the land of the hidden sun,

For a darkness came on the barley fields

And it changed the lie of the land,

For when we rose in the morning, there

Was nothing but sea and sand.

 

All our cities were washed away

And all of our knowledge too,

Whole populations had disappeared

And left us with just a few,

We’d lived high up on the mountainside

When the sea had reared to flood,

But when the water receded there

Was nothing but sand and mud.

 

A man had wandered into the town

In the month before the last,

He said, ‘You people better gird up

For the future, not the past,

For the stars line up in a curious way

That will see the earth undone,

And what is normal will slip away

To the place where dreams come from.’

 

He wore a turban, yellow and green

And a beard right down to his waist,

A line of stars on both of his arms

And a half-moon, neatly traced.

‘The earth is trying to shake you off

Like the virus you’ve become,

To grow anew from the bedlam that

Your lives and your works have won.’

 

He said he was called ‘The Magi’, and

Came once in a thousand years,

But most of the people jeered at him,

‘You’ll not fool us with your curse!’

A week went by and a storm blew up

And the people began to doubt,

Trying to hide their fear inside

As the moon and the stars went out.

 

Nothing was left down on the plain

Not a stone lay on a stone,

Nothing that you could recognise

On earth, from our former home,

The Magi sat and he watched us grieve

For the things that we had lost,

And said, ‘You never could quite believe

That you have to count the cost.’

 

We ploughed the fields with our oxen

And we ground our wheat on a stone,

The Magi seemed to approve of it

So he left us to stand alone,

But the people pined for their history

For the life that had gone before,

‘I’ll let you into the mystery,’

He said, ‘if you’re really sure!’

 

So now we meet in the village hall

That we built from scattered stone,

And he tells us tales in a darkened room

Of the wonders that have flown,

Each night, the characters flicker

Like a light playing on a screen,

Firing imaginations of

A world that is now a dream.

 

He reels off tales about magic, how

The stars had reflected light,

Before, when the clouds had parted

Not like now, as they block sunlight,

He says there once was a moon that crashed

Into a distant star,

And slowly we are remembering

The who and the what we are.

 

But one in seven of babies born

Is perishing in the cold,

We’re slowing the population now

Not like in the days of old,

The earth is blossoming green again

Though you’d think it rather odd,

That people mutter between themselves

Of a deity, called ‘God!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

I often wonder how the ancients, supposedly without the technology, equipment, or tools, were able to build the pyramids at Giza or any of the other various monolithic structures around the globe. We can't replicate those structures today nor can we figure out how they were built. Neither can we explain how similar structures sprang up around the globe among people who supposedly knew nothing about the other. They had to have help from a higher source.

Some call that source God, but I wonder about aliens. If God, after all, comes from another place on high and he is not of this earth, would not he, too, be an alien?

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Wonderful story!

[Tate Morgan]

I think the Magi was a good analogy for what we fear yet know. makes you wonder doesnt it ? have we been down this road before ? How many times has mankind been all but erased. How many more will there be.

[Beccy]

Mankind is on the edge of a precipice. Let us hope that good sense prevails before it really is too late.

Love the rhythm and pace of this.

Beccy.

[Lena M. P.]

Very interesting twist on the fate of mankind. He wiped the earth clean once, there is no promise that it can't happen again. Only this time is could be from our own undoing. I really enjoyed reading this story. It shakes up our theory that we rule our futures. Those futures can be snuffed out in the time it takes to push a button.

[quinfinn]

sorry it took me so long to respond. i have had rather a lot on my mind lately. your writing and your rhyme is, as usual, quite excellent. another splendid piece!

[roarke]

I like the description of the Magi character, like to see more of him here. If only we held on to oral traditions of passing stories and legends from one generation to another and never ever invented that thing called television...

Superb writing as always David

[Marie]

Very good story of prophecy...hopefully the people have learned something...

[LapseOfMind]

Very nicely done, I very much enjoy your poetic tales. The visuals easily clamber up from my mind.

[Onku Ghosh]

AS usual very well written.You have set such high standards that our poems just pale in comparision.