Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Love (04/27/06)
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TITLE: Paradise Lost in Translation | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
05/03/06 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
How was I loved by thee?
Let me count the ways.
You loved me in a shallow place
Painted in a garish light with brush
Of fear and spite and hateful color
Hidden by pretension's veil.
You loved me in the dark of storm
With crashing strikes and booming
Voice, a threat to life and limb
To trusting mate and others, small
You loved me, a prisoner bound, victim
Of your ups or downs as you strove for wrong
To break my spirit and my mind -what's left,
To fend off words and blows
You loved me, tainted by deep grief attached
And toxic from your youth; a scary place
Pushed back, but waiting on the edge to claim
What faith there was, pummeled without mercy
In my ignorant endurance I was
Trapped by some ungodly, passed down web
Woven in an evil pattern without a
Shred of Gospel Truth, but only hurt…
The word, unmasked, did not apply
To the lie I bought so cheap and yet believed.
(Maybe lust, then power and control
But not what Jesus taught and lived)
If agape's key had not unlocked the chain
You placed around my heart,
And if I had bled from wounds never soothed
Or no one came to lead me through the endless dark
With compassion's lamp
And if my never rescued life had ebbed away,
All in vain - No testimony to what little strength
It took to stand once I saw a pure example of
What real Love is supposed to be…
Left to die, surrendered,
Useless, overcome
By an unjust sentence,
Inflicted, but not chosen
To be like Him, at the death,
The best I would have had to offer
In forgiveness and release is simply this:
Perhaps you should have "Loved" me less…
***
*Note:Antithesis to Sonnets From the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning who wrote, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…"
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