I will, with God's help.

Strength and Weakness

Peace be with you, my savior said,
savior because I find my peace in him.
I promise to keep his name
ever between myself and the world.
If God is to help me pass
through bombs and hunger,
through hatred and guilt,
God must waggle a handful
of magic words in my face,
and yet convey them
with subtlety, quietly,
a whisper among my intuitions.
I promise to conduct
such treasures to someone else
who needs them, I promise
in full knowledge that I cannot do so.
Justice, freedom, a power to believe
that death itself is dead,
all ride on my foolish certainty
that like your bleeding hands,
nailed to the cross of mortality,
my own hands bear the full weight
of my dying body, and they will be
sustained by love,
will always be sustained.

[The Covenant Journal, Number 26, September 2007 All poetry in this issue is by Robert Cogswell.]