Poetry

VANITY RETURN

by Walter Boswell
02/21/19
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Vanity Return

Others sinned and were forgiven.

Others went their way and were happy.

Others survived and prospered

                who knew not truth nor coveted justice.

Others came to me with stories, and I listened.

Others cried, and I sympathized.

But I am left alone in my decrepitness

                to tell the tale no wants to hear.

So this Easter Christ was vain insofar

                as he thought, rightly or wrongly,

                his life meant something to the world.

                                                Remove this cup;

                                betrayed at the Temple;

                persecuted on the cross –

forsaken like the thieves on either side;

while beneath him the Romans ruled,

                and ruled in bloody glory afterward;

while all around the poor festered,

                mourning in their kindly sorrows

                the meaning of ‘tragic’ vanity.

Place Present

Feeling becomes not a fruitful understanding,

                sympathy is not enough;

unless to say, God feels our pain exactly

                                at the moment of its strike –

                from the tiniest scratched finger

                                to the longest dismembered limb,

                from the fool’s disappointment

                                to an orphaned child’s mother-loss;

unless to say this,

then whatever Christ did was vain and senseless

                for it is not his Father’s universe.

Church To Gather

As fresh as a sunrise prayer at sunset,

tweak liturgy bells and Mosaics in the twilight.

                So much of God goes unspoken here;

                so everlasting the service unserved.

No matter how slight the taste,

                or how sweet the toast of sacred wine,

                followers still pave the path

                                of the spiritually stoned.

Dr. Walter Boswell

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