The hope and charity may go
A moment but the faith that’s you,
You I can’t feel and never see,
Yet feed on my identity.
O Christ, can it ever be just
To make a burden out of trust?
Love does. I mean our human love
And you are man but spoken of
As God. To make life simplified
You were a little child who died.
O take my unlove and despair
And what they lack let faith repair.
Elizabeth Jennings, Collected Poems (Manchester/New York: Carcanet Press, 1986), p. 160.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Pam 01.25.12 at 8:13 am
Nice poem. Thanks Kim!
Tomorrow is Australia Day (26th January) and my prayer for this Australia Day is the success of a coming referendum to change our Constitution to recognise the rights of indigenous Australians.
This poem is a translation of a 20th century Aboriginal song.
Two of Us Will Go
By foot,
Walking,
We too are about to go,
In this relation country of mine.
In this country,
We two are walking.