A Day of Reckoning

Saint Peter the keeper
of the Gates of Heaven
had a ledger  on which
he recorded the names
of those who’d behaved
and those who hadn’t.

That enabled him
to distinguish between
the wheat and the chaff.
On the right he’d have
the righteous and pious,
on the left the riff-raff.

But whilst of the sinners
the number was great
the one of the virtuous
was very much thinner.
He considered the matter
with a deep frown.

Who was to go up
and who to go down?
He was in a quandary;
the great and the good
would ascend right away
but what of the others?

Those who’d committed
sins that were mortal
deserved to go through
the portal of hell
but for venial sinners
there’d be a compromise.

The solution he found
proved to be very wise.
A place called Limbo,
between Heaven and Hell,
could be the right abode
and  suit them well.

© Luigi Pagano 2015