I studied the news and the weather forecast
and felt my heart hurt with the pain and loss,
sought to make a prayer that thought of hope
and found it hollow, echoing in a vacuum.
—–
I looked in the bible for words to help me and
faltered over the words ‘love your enemy’, and
exhortation to forgive seventy times seven,
making me feel overwhelmed and faulty.
——
Putins there and Liz Truss, Trump and as ever
Bolsanaro, Xi-xiping, the misogynist Taliban, Iran
writing a sentence of nothingness to the women
and girls that in God’s creation are equal to men.
——
Forgive them when they have caused such hurt,
forgive them when they deliberately celebrate
their lives and turn the screws on their subjects,
while holding to a devious plan, previously made
—–
to enslave, oppress, dehumanise and murder,
strengthening their bitter, stoney, cold hearts’
wills and some even say it is God’s work that
they are doing and opposition is of the devil.
——
Forgive them? Love them? Is to turn upside
down their view of humanity where each hold
grudges and fudges the line twixt good and bad.
It restores our humanity, lets go our acerbity.
———
They are still guilty, they are still to be pitied,
they are still amassing obscene wealth and
yet we are free of their machinations; as we
set our decisions in the ways Jesus taught
——
to walk on the side of the oppressed is to
find God, and so we love and forgive letting
go our acid anger, and feed our souls on
the love and goodness of a God who died,
—-
was denied, crucified, walks as our guide,
and when
the words don’t come
prays at our side.