"Heaven is a Wishing Well," Final Draft

Caldo: Wishing Well

A temple in the valley stops
The flow of water to the crops
That feed the builders on the platform
Sinewy and glassy black

By the night the moonlight teasing
As the temple guards lay freezing.
At the dawn they’ll take to wheezing
Begging God to send them back.

With leprosy the old priest rots
He, watching as the guards draw lots
Cries Caldo! Gelo! Fear ye Hell!
For heaven is a wishing well!

Your money won’t your wheezing quell
For heaven is a wishing well.

As builders mix the temple plaster,
Praying makes the work go faster.
Sunset brings the earthly master
Shouting from his dinner tent,

God! bless the ashen stones of which we
Build this house of thine so quickly
Toil ‘til He sounds the bell,
But heaven is a wishing well!

Toil ‘til he sounds the bell,
But heaven is a wishing well!

With hands and lungs and hearts of stone
And chisels wrought of camel bone
You earn your passage to the throne
Along my pious parallel!

The priest’s afflicted temple wilts
Both cavernous and filled with guilt
Still goes he forth with tithes to sell
But heaven is a wishing well.

Caldo! Gelo! Fear ye Hell!
But heaven is a wishing well.

*

Caldo I

Priest, before your tongue has spoken
Take your crucifix and cloak him
Underneath your foreign raiment
And your motive then proclaim.

Your majesty benevolent!
I bear a message heaven-sent
For your damnation to prevent
And life eternal to reclaim!

I ask you, priest, to spare me sermons
Here your dictums need determine
What my court can hope to gain
By joining ranks in your campaign.

Sovereignty will I retain
By joining ranks in your campaign?

My liege, you’ve guessed my origin
I represent the realm wherein
The faith is deep invested in
Taxation of the indigent;

The lords and wellborn there contrive
To have the masses paying tithes
For their salvation to attain
By joining ranks in our campaign,

And you can tax your whole domain
By joining ranks in our campaign!

Taxation is your first decree
And we collect a modest fee
For payment of a company
Of guards the order to maintain,

Then you will stand upon our wings
Of power, wrought of sovereign kings,
The lucre richening your reign
By joining ranks with our campaign.

Collection plates and creed ordained
By joining ranks with our campaign!

*

Caldo II

Then, with his purpose met, the priest
Commands his tired horses east,
To regions ripe to follow suit
And rulers not yet resolute.

One hand it takes to strike accords,
And make of nations willful wards.
One hand outstretched will see its pay,
But two hands does it take to pray.

The priest is paid a vast commission
From each sovereign land’s addition.
In his sleep he spies the gates,
But money cannot pay the fates

In dreams his vindication waits
But money cannot pay the fates.

One hand it takes to hold the fee
In specie for delivery,
But he who holds will rue the day,
For two hands does it take to pray.

One day the sun beats just for him,
And pangs of conscience burn his skin.
His guilt arises much too late,
For money cannot pay the fates.

A scanty storm won’t irrigate,
And money cannot pay the fates.

The priest falls into deep malaise,
And by the road his body lays
For hours turning into days,
No faith his ailment to abate.

A fever clutches at his head
While boils make his palms burn red.
He staggers to the city gates,
But money cannot pay the fates.

So heavy his collection plates,
But money cannot pay the fates.

*

Gelo I

Tell me while your father sleeps
From whom your marriage hand he keeps,
And at the risk of his indictment,
Show me favor in the night!

The eyes of barons, dukes and dons
And all we lowborn peasant pawns
Have found milady, shackles on
And wanting passion to requite.

The king, your father, makes us sweat
Upon his land, but he can bet
On rebels being made of men
For all can change by summer’s end.

On rebels being made of men
But all can change by summer’s end

But over you the rebels sigh
And bring their flutes and lyres nigh
To play until their cups run dry,
For you their anger circumvents.

I among them was beseechéd:
Climb until your walls I reachéd.
Find if you are foe or friend,
For all can change by summer’s end.

Find if you are foe or friend,
For all can change by summer’s end.

So to our sun I knelt and prayed,
And gen’rous sacrifice I made,
And with my bovine homage paid,
I climbed among the highland wind.

That wind inside the trees was stirred,
And in its whispering I heard
Of rebels being made of men,
That all will change by summer’s end.

Of rebels being made of men,
That all will change by summer’s end.

*

Gelo II

Your father feigns epiphany,
And cries unanswered litany,
And sends out his uncompromising
Servants for to proselytize.

A sacrilege has he asserted,
Having none of us converted:
Have our rightful gods deserted
For this heathen enterprise!

Abandoned we’d be by their power!
Given not the rain to flower
Or the sun to call our lord,
The darkness would be our reward.

Without the sun to call our lord,
The darkness would be our reward.

I was charged a war to render,
But mine eyes knew not your splendor!
Beauty’s made this rebel tender,
Apt my aim to reinvent.

So what, my splendid maid, pray speak
Thinks you of what your father seeks?
Do you believe the sun’s our lord,
And darkness will be our reward?

Do you believe the sun’s our lord,
And darkness will be our reward?

Dear rebel, I am faithful to
The gods and goddesses we knew,
And if I’m queen we’ll always do
The sacrifice the sun’s implored,

But if my father wills me wed
A nobleman of heathen head,
The heir will be a half-sin ward,
And darkness will be our reward!

The sun will cease to be our lord,
And darkness will be our reward!

*

Gelo III

I fear as well this bloodline fate,
Starvation of the pious state,
So I propose my rebel lady
That you not remain a maid.

If, in rebellion, love we shared
To bring into the world an heir
And raised him in the temple where
This sacrilege he could evade,

Then we could slay this growing beast,
Your predecessor and his priest,
And bounteous would be the land
For generations by your hand.

And bounteous would be the land
For generation by your hand.

Oh shocking infidelity!
The politics of cruelty!
Good rebel can you swear to me
That virtuous is your intent?

My oath is but a word to thee,
But swear I do on righteous knee
That bounteous will be the land
For generations by your hand.

That bounteous will be the land
For generations by your hand.

Then take me in insurgent sheets
And to your work I thou entreat:
To place upon my father’s seat
The produce of our parlous plan,

But always let me see your face
To show the truth in your embrace,
And bounteous will be the land
For generations by your hand.

And bounteous will be the land
For generations by your hand.

*

Gelo IV

Standing silent and abreast
The temple guards are not to rest
Amidst this storm of unrelenting
Indignation and dissent,

For now, unsanctioned by the king
The people form a battle ring,
And sacrifices do they bring
To stimulate the pyre’s scent.

For on the temple balcony,
A cross now on his livery,
While on his face a smile cracks,
The king sits counting up the tax.

The devil covering his tracks,
The king sits counting up the tax.

But with his daughter’s door neglected,
Bolted not and unprotected,
Scandal slips in undetected
With an ardor quite unbent.

Counting out his ample ration,
Knowing nothing of the passion,
Ignorant of zealous acts,
The king sits counting up the tax.

The devil covering his tracks,
The king sits counting up the tax.

How deeply past and future cleave
When rebel bodies interweave!
The lovers pushing to conceive
The future on their nail-scratched backs!

And with her chamber all but vacant
She, to fill the oath they’d taken
Shows him to the armor racks
The king still counting up the tax...

And he, unflinching, picks an axe
The king still counting up the tax.

*

Gelo: The Dawn

Nightjars bellow through the trees
Their predatory reveries
For those that toil in the twisting
Reeds that wade in morning mist,

Another summer night the guards
Have sung the verses of the bards
While thinking of the softly starred
Horizon and the maids they’ve kissed

But day invades to show the act!
They wake to find the temple sacked
And natives on the outer lawn
In eerie reverence for the dawn.

And scores of natives on the lawn
In eerie reverence for the dawn.

The sky was painted o’er with clouds
And through his gagging and his shroud
One guard invokes his faith aloud
But finds his hope and voice are spent.

The other cries in sharp disdain,
Rebellion does not bring the rain!
But all continued looking on
In eerie reverence for the dawn.

The silent natives looking on
In eerie reverence for the dawn.

Then unannounced the arrows arced
And with their vision growing dark,
The guardsmen spied a mighty barque
To sail them forth to Avalon.

The clouds that circled overhead
The dawn had softly tinted red.
They set to work with sickles drawn
In eerie reverence for the dawn.

Down to their fields with sickles drawn
In eerie reverence for the dawn.


* * *