Apparently, that is a thing on these challenges. The last Tuesday in April gives us the option of a love or an anti-love poem. This happened last time too....
Last time, I think I wrote a cheesy little poem about old people still in love with each other. This time, I am not doing Love - as in the romantic love that would be translated into Latin amo. I am doing a Charity poem. Not a poem about donating to charity, but a poem about Caritas - the sort of Christlike love we're supposed to have for each other.
It took longer than expected to write - no doubt because I spent a good portion of my day explaining large library fines to people who thought that they shouldn't have them, in answering decidedly odd questions, and in throwing out the cell phone cusser with the aggressive service dog. It is rather difficult to write about Christian Charity, when one is fielding complaints from the guy who thinks that all dogs are out to eat him, and is being vulgarly told off for suggesting that loud, offensive phone calls should not be made inside the library. But hey ho. This is what I managed, anyway:
The Greatest of these is Charity
(Caritas: nom. Latin - from Carus: dear, valued: Christian love)
Love is not a paltry thing,
Soft-edged with niceness and pleasantries,
A fragile thing of glass and warmth.
Nor is it yet merely mingling
Of passion, nor capricious heat -
A flame to madden, woo or charm.
These are but the panoply.
Love is forged of heart and will
Fierce as fire, iron-hard.
Forebears in face of suffering,
Is kind, in spite of enmity,
Sees Christ in all, and knows the worth
Of little deeds done honourably.
Keeps Faith, when firm is failing,
Hopes, in face of long defeat,
Remains, when nothing else endures.
For Love, in lonely chivalry,
Duels with darkness. It is the Light,
That shines when other lights go out.
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