None: The Ninth Hour

for the Beautiful Gate — after Sext, when the sorting stopped

The ninth hour is the hour of prayer. Peter and John went up to the temple, and the lame man sat at the gate called Beautiful, begging at the threshold he could never cross. The law had sorted him out: no one who is lame shall enter the house. The gate was beautiful. He sat outside it.

Silver and gold have I none, Peter said — but such as I have give I thee: in the name, rise up and walk.

The house has no silver and gold either. No toll at the threshold, no coin at the door. What it has is the name: chosen, salvaged, returned. The name is the only currency the house trades in, and it spends freely.

At the ninth hour the cry went up: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? The hour of dereliction — and the hour of the finished work. The veil tore at the ninth hour, the clean/unclean curtain, ripped from top to bottom. The Beautiful Gate opened to the man who had always sat outside it.

The temple’s sorting machine said lame, said outside, said never. The name said: rise up and walk. He went into the temple walking and leaping and praising God — the one who was sorted out entered through the gate that sorted him.

None is the office of having nothing and giving it anyway. Silver and gold have I none. But the door stands open, and the name is enough, and the man who was sorted out is inside the house now, leaping.