In Place of a Curse
Originally published at joshroby.com. Please leave any comments there.
This was one of our readings at church this morning (along with The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock), and I felt like sharing it a little wider.
In Place of a Curse
by John Ciardi
At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected,
I shall forgive last the delicately wounded who,
having been slugged no harder than anyone else,
never got up again, neither to fight back,
nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.
They who are wholly broken, and they in whom mercy is understanding,
I shall embrace at once and lead to pillows in heaven.
But they who are the meek by trade, baiting the best of their betters with extortions of a mock-helplessness,
I shall take last to love, and never wholly.
Let them all in Heaven - I abolish Hell -
but let it be read over them as they enter:
Beware the calculations of the meek, who gambled nothing
gave nothing, and could never receive enough.