Note: This was initially written as a song, but functions well as a poem :-)
CHORUS:
I'll be there when we meet up in the air!
You'll be there when we meet up in the air!
We'll all be there when we meet up in the air!
Hallelujah by and by!
It was quite a surprise, when I took to the skies, but that's not the wildest thing:
What looked like a storm had to be the thickest swarm of locusts formed wing to wing.
No locusts were they, but my neighbors Bill and Ray, and some bikers dripping with chain mail.
But I almost swooned for between me and the moon were some inmates from the county jail.
From my swift, high mount, oh, forgive me, I lost count Of the lowlifes I knew on earth—
The ornery, poor, scoundrel, petty thief and more -- homeless druggies and others of no worth.
A light from above filled my whole heart with love and my mind opened wide and deep.
I'd heard in the past how the first would be last. Now I knew it in a single sweep.
Call girls, CPAs to the mob now shouted praise 'long with landlords and drag show queens.
They did not delay, for they had the right of way and they soared by like F-Fifteens!
Lesbians moms and that guy who asked for alms on the off-ramp near Route 1B;
The halt and the lame by the millions how they came and poor beggars far as eye could see,
Jewish and Greek, bearded lady, tattooed freak, were winging their way aloft;
Twin matchbook whores, and a rock band still on tour, pornographers hard and soft;
Muslim, Bahai and that atheistic guy dedicated to the scientific view;
Folks of all creeds, dressed in feathers, silk and beads -- and, I think, I saw some Christians, too.
But now I divined that the folks left behind were the ones I expected to see.
A voice answered, "No! they're still miles and miles below. They didn't count on so much company!
Osteen and Falwell didn't answer the Lord’s call well, inclining to grifts and scammin'.
They're in the outer dark, where their limousine is parked—the trunk packed with filthy mammon.
Jim and Tammy Faye may not get here right away, but someday they’ll arrive as well.
Jimmy, Oral, Pat and the other theocrats, from the looks of things, they think they are in hell.
Adolf, Uncle Joe, Mao, Columbus and Nero will tag along, so I assume—
To get their wings to flap will not be a finger snap: so much blood clogging up the plumes.
Image is “Dante and Beatrice see God,” illustration by Giustave Doré of Canto 28 of Dante’s “Paradiso.” Public domain.