Thursday Short Poem: Glaser’s “A Poem Ending…”

Unmerited grace and unconditional love are difficult to imagine, difficult to describe, difficult to believe in.  And yet, for those of us who call ourselves Christians, they are the greatest of realities.  This Michael S. Glaser poem, from a back issue of First Things, captures this mystery nicely.

A Poem Ending in the Preposition "with"

"You can fail love, but love will never fail you."

. . . an idea so luminous,
so . . . so . . . amazing

that most of us
have to make up conditions:

Thus, love comes free,
but not for you or me.

we have to deserve it,
we have to be worthy of it

and thus we live for the if of ever
wondering always whether

we have failed again
or have somehow earned

what was always there to begin
with.