An eyewitness once recited
His bone-chilling account
Of his tightrope walk to Death
How he managed to return
Was, and remains, impossible to say
But his frightening story resonates

"There I stood on my toes,
On an intermediate point teetering
Between the idyllic salvation
Of Heaven
And the macabre derangement
Hell promises

Lose your balance
And the wayfarer finds himself
Succumbing to the merciless
Pull of the underworld
Condemning him to eternal
Suffering

The scanty few who
Travel across the rope
Unscathed,
undaunted and unfazed
Indulge in the reward
Of the Holy Father's *deliverance

And so I stood on the rope,
Its rough frays tickling my soles, I,
Precariously perched on the border
Of Life, Death,
Of Salvation and Damnation
Too overcome with fear to advance forward

I whispered a few syllables,
The dulcet notes rollicked up to
A Saviour above
Omniscient one who knew
The best path for my wintering fate
In a haze of bewilderment I awoke"