Ron Moran
SUPPOSE THE RETURN OF CHRIST
So I’m thinking, perhaps irreverently, about why Christ
returned
in ways his disciples could not recognize him, as on
the road
to Emmaus, by the shore of the sea with fisherman,
elsewhere
to, and I keep wanting to ask Why? Why did Christ
come back
incognito? And suppose he were to return now—
in
what guise should we expect to find him? Maybe
as a broker
on Wall Street, a paramedic in the Sub-Saharan,
and, well,
how can we be sure it is Christ—because he says so?
If they could not
verify his person, how can we recognize him now?
Is it that God
prefers his son to be incognito, to check out the land,
so to speak,
and if so, what are we to do when the doubters feed
the media
with historical analogues, with controversies boiling
about Christ,
his authenticity, his redemptive quality; and what will
happen
to Christianity—perish in the textbooks of the world,
with Christ,
as a person, but what kind of a person, a good guy
or an agitator,
one whose journey, whose sufferings were justified,
or one
whose way goes the way of the steep four corners
of the Earth,
like a discounted theory of the origins of the universe,
and where
will we be then?—better off than now, in our beliefs,
or diminished,
our faith being rubbed out, as if by an eraser on a board
of history?
Author’s Comment: “Suppose the Return of Christ” is a very different poem for me, not in format, for it follows the long/short line technique that I adopted several years ago, which also includes, at times, my use of rather long sentences in order to generate a rhythmic motion. Anyway, I am a Christian. Perhaps this poem was occasioned, in part, by the guy who recently predicted Judgment Day and the end of the world on May 21. It made me think of how very, very difficult it would be for us to accept anyone who claimed to be Christ, and how difficult it was for even his closest followers to accept him after his resurrection.
Bio: Ronald Moran has published 11 collections of poetry, the most recent being The Jane Poems , two books of criticism (one coauthored), and hundreds of poems, essays, and reviews in a number of journals, including Connecticut Poetry Review, Commonweal, Emrys Journal, Evening Street Review, Loch Raven Review, Meadowland Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, Thomas Wolfe Review, and Wild Goose Poetry ReviewHis writings and memorabilia about them are archived in Special Collections of the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. Moran lives in Simpsonville, SC.
Wild Goose Poetry Review 
Wonderful poem. From that first line–or maybe even the title?–I’m thinking too about why Christ returned, and I’m carried along in poem’s current of suggestions and questions. Going “the way of the steep four corners / of the Earth” reminds me–with all good associations–of Donne’s “round earth’s imagined corners” in his holy sonnet VII.
Thanks, Celisa, and , yes, Donne’s line inspired mine, or I should say I stole it from him. I asked to review How Language Was Lost in SCR but was told someone had already had claimed it.
Take care,
Ron
Yes, stealing is best. And thanks for asking SCR–I think Wayne Chapman got Christina Cook to do the review.