This poet doesn’t really know, of course,  but she’s under the impression that many of her treasured readers might be the kind to ask this question themselves ~ and perhaps receive much the same answers.

*****

Recorded Reading (2:55): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/413cai5lntrzgy2f3dvz0/The-Question.mp3?rlkey=gsmcjr3oqltqyw4dp4hd4r5sx&dl=0

*****

The Question

I put the question to my team
Of angelic guides,
Who happen to dwell bodiless
Upon the other side

The camouflaging Veil
Death and transfiguration of:
“Why is it that for offering
Naught but truth and love,

“Enab’ling affirmation,
And entertaining wit,
I seem instead to cocreate
Their exact opposite

“Betrayal, hurt and malice
And vindictive glee
In wrecking every future hope
Of happiness for me,

“Who’s offered, first to finish,
Naught but love, authentic truth,
And helpfulness and contribution
— Willing gifts, forsooth?”

The angels, as they, thankfully,
Very often do
A new perspective gave from which this
Tendency to view

Telling me I’ve not committed
Any action to my shame
The reason for it’s only this:
Here is where I came!

“Look around,” my disembodied
Counselors point out,
“Hurt and want and horror
Are all around and all about

“Tortures and humiliations
Entertainment are
Perpetrate each other on
Large and little war

“In home, in workplace, even in
The social media ~
This third dimension scans like some
Twisted encyclopedia!

“Surprising it is not that you must
Take fall after fall:
Astonishing it is that you
Manage to get up at all!

“Sixty years existence of
In this barbaric place
Yet you’ve never once rejoiced
In an unhappy face

“No matter what that face, in past,
Might have spit at you
Your true desire has always been
To see that soul sweetly renew

“No wonder they’re confused by you,
No wonder you’re not understood ~
Someone to whom it just makes sense
To be generous and good

“Someone willing, just as now,
To take the hurtful fall
To the general peace keep
In benefit of the good All

“You came here to illuminate
You came here to shed light
You came to lift up others
Toward their own divine delight

“If, for such an offering,
They did not save their very worst,
The legend of good Jesus Christ
Would not be rehearsed

“And when your spirit volunteered
To come where things be as they are
You knew there’d be much darkness
Hopelessness and war

“Do not despair, be thankful for
Every granted breath —
And we’ll welcome you back to us
When you ascend in death.”

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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