When baser selves, enthralled with promised pow’r
Don threadbare cloaks their pained fears hope will hide
Souls’ oldest wounds—Shame’s pain, inflamed each hour
By false gods’ cries, bereft of naught but lies.
This painful, cloven time suggests no end
To witnessing what cruelest hearts design:
To harm and injure those who cannot fend
Off hate and spite from hollowed humankind.
Where hearts permit, we must then bear Our Light,
– llumine seams where hate feeds darkened spore.
Aligned with love that flows from Christ-child’s might
Hate’s skulk removed lets love move to the fore.
For hate sustained makes weak the hearts it holds;
While love sustained grows love in hearts it molds.
©Stephen Bolles
12/25 All rights reserved