Limbo

                             Limbo 

                                 I

The place was real, existing in my mind

And in the minds of classmates who believed

That certain blameless souls must be confined

There, waiting for their state to be relieved.

For me the place was grey and filled with slots:

A vast and murky, silent honeycomb,

Where whitish souls lay helpless, as in cots,

Their time spent dreaming endlessly of home.

The place was real, real as a distant land.

As real as Heaven, Purgatory or Hell.

Strange what a trusting child can understand,

Creating mindscapes under teacher's spell.

The place was real, not easy to discard.

I see it still, with angel standing guard. 

                             II

And in imagination I am there,

Existing in that sunless, shadeless place.

I breathe the odourless and tepid air

And glance upon the guarding angel's face

(Whose eyes look through me into depths unknown).

Accepting tacit freedom to explore,

I tread with care across the waxy stone:

A lone embodied soul among the store

Of countless ghostly beings waiting in

Their allocated slots. They cannot know

The mystifying nature of the sin

Incarcerating them in their Limbo.

I quit the place. I shudder with relief

And marvel at the strangeness of Belief.