Compassion

                 Compassion

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”  Matthew 10:29

          

Compassion is a tearless grief, an eye

Like God’s. How else could He survive?  He sees

And can’t indulge Himself. He cannot cry

Because He’d never stop.  His teardrops freeze

Because He can’t escape from knowing all.

He knows the past, the future and the pain

That shreds through all creation, birds that fall

Like swifts that never come to ground and stain

It with their death, no, never crash till dead.

The swifts can’t pray so they can never ask

For mercy.  They think God is just a dread

To be ignored.  He wears discretion’s mask.

  His immortality means He can’t swoop

    To painless realms.  He’s on an endless loop.

Phillip Whidden