The day of judgement that I would like
would be one where God and his angels
are the great librarians of eternity
who could list for me every book
I ever read, and when I read them.
Even now, I regret how much
I have forgotten about what I have read
from when I started, onward.
For sure, there would be a fair number
of books I would rather forget, and regret
for having wasted my time consuming them.
But for all the junk there are going to be
more treasures that recount the sense
of when grace undercut the pressure
that human life was put under,
not least all the prison literature.
From the hyper clarity of 'Pilgrim's Progress'
to the boredom with himself of M. de Sade
to the writings-on-the-run of St Paul,
to the memoirs of Casanova and secret scribbles
of Soviet poet and writer Irene Ratushinskaya,
prisons have inspired women and men
to take up their pen and become authors.
If my eternity is to be a place I cannot leave
then wisdom wrought from similar places,
albeit of more suffering should sustain me.
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