Share Poetry Critiques Poetry       Forums       Freewrite       Store      

Authenticity


Behold the vital ingenuity
of grace -
incarnation’s gift,
love’s unearned favour,
offer tendered openly.

Fundamental purchase -
life’s blood
pouring down -
lien
against each human life.

Take the offer up,
freely given
without cost,
and the life bequeathed
timeless is.

Reject - and grace adjusts
to your choice, and
all its consequences
carries forth
to fit your will inviolate.

Fulcrum’s point Golgotha’s rock,
the teeter-totter of the cross,
the playground of your life,
no game is this,
which end you choose to sit.

Two thieves hung close by him
upon their wooden towers,
one, for hate the cynic was, condemned,
other, penitent received -
Paradise without the earning.

This no mythic story,
but Creator’s life impacted
by iron spikes,
that we might know
the cost of it.

Reality thus presented,
historic, demands attention
and response,
to truth-claims boundaried
by love and authenticity.

    : Comment:

Comments


  • Kiddy
    February 3, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    Dear J.G… me dumbfounded…

    A pure message in a clearly lofty diction and flow. Stanza one – made me think why the heaven I don’t get such beautiful way to express what I want to… simple, but strong message – behold the ingenuity of grace… each stanza unfolds the knot that their previous stanzas have within... Man is provided with two options… taking up the offer or to reject it… what is the result, if he makes his choice this or that, his karma, hell and heaven…how fast the flow is… now again coming back to the title, reality demands attention… of course, every action of ours has been given a big attentions and every deed is judged….. OMG… what a poem! I say GREAT!
    Apologies, if my take is so stupid!
    Thanks for sharing
    Love
    -Kiddy


  • Lad silver member
    February 3, 2008

    Edit | Reply
    Starting off with Michealangelo's Pieta is a nifty and sly way to get me onto a favorable footing with this one, J.G. But the poem is a worthy caption for it.

    I like its probing tone, its intellectuality gone poetic: faith is not unreasonable, but enhances reason; faith speaks when science and philosophy stop talking - that's the feeling I receive from the poem. And I think that even those readers who aren't specifically Christian still can get a deepened sense of being "love"d and "authentic" creatures of the Great and Nearly Unspeakable Mystery within them. Well, I know it's true for me, at least. Nice work, carefully nuanced and dictioned and formatted.

    I'm uncertain - and this is merely a personal opinion - if "This no mythic story" is accurate. I suppose if "myth" is taken to be fairy-tale, it would be. But, for me "myth" is just about the deepest truth of our existence; it goes beyond story and theology into the heart of being. So, for me, the poem's resonances about incarnation and our decisions about joining in or avoiding, is mythic to the max. It's at the foundation of every religious and spiritual impulse, Christian and non. But, that's just a personal thought; I think I understand where you're coming from there in the poem.

    Strong work, J.G. Bold in its belief. Refreshing to see on a largely secular site. It "demands attention / and response" from the thoughtful reader. If you have enough points accumulated, why not put this one in "Featured Poems" to get more readings? It deserves them.

    Ciao -

    Lad