The Hospital Ward

 

Early Friday morning and all is serene and non-vocal

Hospital patients sedated and suffering now await the arrival

Of the doctor and his locums into this acute hospital ward.

The doctor's quirks of who stays and who remains swings

From his stethoscope like a silver thread.

But before the prescribed ward visit, slim fluttering nurses,

With kind but rather tired eyes,

Enquire of our medical plight.

We reply rather quickly fine thanks but are rigid with fright.

This hospital rather like others of its happy generation,

Offers a chapel for wall-to-wall prayer, well that's the contention!

Yet on pushing against its heavy uninviting glass door,

For a prayerful visit, imagine my confusion to see lying across the parquet floor,

Under a symbolic sacristy lamp, the sight of five Buddhists,

Chanting mystic mantras from their foreign prayer lists.

So I must ask would these deeds increase a Christian's wealth?

Certainly not. For Behold what cometh is all now interfaith!

By now the eminent physician and his anxious pack have arrived!

But for these waiting patients: Walter, Scott, Gerard, and Fred,

His decision for them will mean,

Who happily departs for home, or who sadly will have to remain.

One day perhaps sooner for some.

Maybe much later for some,

God Himself will perform His own Majestical welcome.

And it will not be medical

But strictly judgmental!

THEN

Many lost souls will to Hell depart but after the Judgment!

Some, the sparse few will gloriously enter,

That famous legendary narrow gate but after the Judgment!

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:13-14.)

GPB

September 2004

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