The Petition

A Poem by Paris Hlad

The Petition of Baptiste De Guerre

On Behalf of the Poet Jean Ami

And Other Victims of War

If there is one thing

I would have you hear,

It is this:

You created Man in Your image,

And therefore, each man will reflect

A variation of that image to the world.

Like You, he will incorporate an urgency to act

With a predilection to imagine and create.

And since he cannot be other than what

These attributes allow him to be,

He will be what You meant him to be

In perpetual revision, renewal,

Forgetfulness, and wonder.

Each man knows that his universe

Will at times be visible to other men,

And he makes You known by making

His universe available to their scrutiny

But he knows that other men will not embrace his universe

Or honor its rules with proper admiration and understanding,

Because they are themselves unique reflections of Your image,

And are therefore bound by the rules that govern their universe.

Yet, he joys in the knowledge that his universe

Has always been known and loved by You �"

Even those parts of his universe

That he cannot know and are

Forever hidden from him.

III

Each man is similar to You in that

His truth is truth

And his life is life.

His birth is the advent of time,

And his death brings about

The end of the world.[1]

And although a new universe is

Thought to burst upon him when he dies,

He cannot know if this is so because that reality

Is not a part of the universe You allow him to know.

Only a drop of hope is given to him,

And all his faith derives from that single drop,

And he has no impetus other than that to go forward.

But my dear friend did make that drop into an ocean

That he navigated in love and constant thanksgiving.

Each man is responsible for the particulars

That make unique the universe he oversees,

Whether it is base and boorishly dominated

By his physical needs and carnal desires

Or is established upon some other

Nobler array of principles.

But it is written that You chose him

And knew his universe since the dawn of time,

And thus, every man will return to You

Largely as You envisioned him long ago.

Therefore, the details of his universe

Should not be reviewed in the context

Of an epoch which no longer exists.[2]

Nor should they be judged against the ascendancy

Of those realities that have not yet come about

And are therefore beyond his ability to know.

For only in the pure and unchanging light,

Imparted through the testimony and sacrifice

Of Your Son, Jesus, can a man be truly known.

This I say on Jean’s behalf �"

His universe was structured

As is nearly the same as Yours,

And none of its primary attributes

Derived from a base or darkling realm.

The intrigues, frauds, and tragedies

Of his earthly existence are no fewer parts

Of the universe that You imagined for him.

And his brief drama was acted out

Entirely upon Your stage -Not his.

For his universe was created by You

And known by You even before You

Allowed him to fill it with particulars.

He suffered in his role as Your creation,

As he was made to live among shadows

That diminished his every good intention,

Even as they did Your happy realm of Eden.

But still, he loved You and clung to

The hope of Your promised salvation,

Despite his sorrow in having failed You

In every fair condition of Your compact.

For so great was his faith in Your Being,

That even those that fell to his sword

Were thought to have perished

By the justice of a greater,

More valued mind.

Yes, even those he slighted, wronged

Or betrayed in mortal consequence

Were believed to have played

Only minor roles in an epic

That was specifically

Yours and his.

And my dear friend was like an angel,

According to Your edicts and Your word.

When wrongs were done, guilt was felt,

Confession followed with tears of penance,

And a faith made stronger by its exercise.

When good transpired, he did not

Build an arch in honor of himself.

For he came to know that no heart

Corrupted by the physical world

Can engender objective goodness.

And know how easily his obedience came

To the first of Your two great commandments:

For Your words were the bread of life to him;

And loving You was always in his nature.

Only in the second of Your commands

Did Jean Ami offend Your will,

As loving Man was in part precluded

By his fealty to You, Oh, Lord!

How could he condone

What he believed to be

Unrighteous in a man?

And how could he ignore

What he knew You judged

Unrighteous in us all?

He loved as best he could.

For although he was of holy origin,

He was not holy in and of himself like You,

But only made to recognize what is holy

In a world that punished him for doing so.

What he was capable of loving, he Loved

And then, in greater part, to please You:

For King David’s psalm sayeth,

“You lead me in the path of righteousness

For Your name’s sake:”

And in that great commission,

My friend was ever true.

I close with this confession, Lord of Justice,

Knowing that I only recount

What is well-known to You.

But certain things must not reflect

Upon the friend for whom I speak,

But only upon that universe

That belongs specifically to me.

For though indeed, we shared a certain sin,

His heart proved not as rank as was my own

And merits not the lash

Of Your unerring judgment.

As knights who had in faith picked up the Cross,

We fought against the villain, Guy La Croix

And took his stone keep castle

Where some things were done

That ever replicated themselves

Within Ami’s good mind and mine.

For although that town’s fierce lord

Did bend unto our fair and gentle terms,

Our stalwart papal legate did refuse them,

Granting peace to only three of their parfaits.

But many more would not abjure their heresies,

And in that castle's courtyard, they were burned,

As if in celebration of our flesh in savage triumph.

My friend began to weep and then to rage,

And then in a great fit did look

To answer what he saw.

But I did hold him back to save us

From the fury in his better faith.

Then silently, we witnessed, in astonishment,

Some several women rush to join

Their sisters in the fire.

One did bear an infant in her arms,

And in her dash of faith,

She mocked our papal banner.

And yet, some fellows egged her on

And howled to hear her mortal shrieks,

Despite that they would burn for every yelp!

Yet, I know the more condemning guilt,

As no strong hand was sorely needed

To suppress my Christian outrage.

We kept a token of that day �"A cloth of white,

Emblazoned with the emblem of the yellow cross.

We filled it with some ashes from the fire that we saw

And kept it as a thing we should in prayer remember.

Yet we did hide this from the sight of other men,

As we feared the times’ disfavor, and let it sink

Beneath a chapel’s floor �"

Never to speak of it again.

Therefore, Most High and Loving Lord,

Send forth Your bulging star that can effect

A better universe in my dear friend and me.

For we are what you did create and love.

Oh, mark, Almighty God, I am Baptiste De Guerre,

A craven man of Earth who rose to save a friend,

And thus, did lose his better self.[3]

[1] A religious belief as much as a reasoned philosophical proposition, Paris was convinced that unless there is a mind to perceive and think about a physical object, that object cannot be said to exist. To him, the only mind that can perceive and think about a particular object is the one that perceives and thinks about it. If the one who perceives and thinks about that object passes out of the physical world, the object passes with him because he was the only one who perceived and thought about that object under the exact circumstances that he did.

[2] If given time, a man will become a different man, perhaps even a better man. That is a proposition that stands at the heart of the Christian faith. If an individual life is to be judged on the basis of his past decisions, then that individual is surely condemned because virtue and spiritual wisdom are regularly achieved by the process of learning from mistakes.

[3] Jean Ami is the Blue Knight’s invention. He is to Baptiste De Guerre what Paris Hlad was to me - a nobler, more idealistic self. When he suppresses Ami’s righteous anger, he typifies what many soldiers have done since the dawn of time: He subordinates his better impulses to the cause of his physical survival. It is the primary lesson of war. For a person’s instincts regularly triumph over the integrity of his moral or religious beliefs. De Guerre does not like what he sees, but he is overwhelmed by the force and enormity of the physical world.

When a confetti bee invents an alter-ego, he does so because his experience teaches him that the realities of the physical world transcend his unprovable beliefs, and because of the shame he feels in recognizing that this is so. He knows, too, that he is a bad fit in such a world, and he is at all times aware of his differentness. Hence, what is an amalgam of his most cherished ideals and rigid delusions arises to protect him from what he has reasoned. It is often a more admirable self but it is also a more vulnerable one.