827 and 831

If you wrote me a hundred strains and songs,

and said to me what you could not before,

and brought your heart to mine, where it belongs,

I’d not remember your sins anymore.

But you will hear a lie inside that word—

something I have not said you will suppose.

You will think that on all your sins I’ve pored,

when that is where my mem’ry never goes.

So don’t you ever speak of them again,

despite the recompense you’ve not yet made.

You really think that I recalled them then,

before you finally looked up and prayed?

I never dwelt on what you did to me,

but all that I have hoped that you will be.

~~~

The one bore pain, the other made it null,

but both kept pain around. What was that for?

Can pain even the powers of gods cull?

Is it that Chief of Gods is but Pain’s Sore?

But making pain as negligible makes

the problem even worse. It says that, though

one cannot take it out, the plan forsakes

experience that all the pain could show.

While that first one, who bore it, says at least

that something in it had some value yet.

Perhaps pain is not god, but is the priest

of any good that living can beget.

So bear that One who bears, beneath its rod,

the full pain of the true and living God.