How Beautiful, How Sad

How beautiful, how sad
The stark dichotomy
How grand, how Galahad
The thought occurred to me.
How does a man react
When told this solemn tale?
The hardest heart is cracked
The strongest legs will fail.
A Man devotes His life,
His every waking thought
To them that hold the knife,
And those that know Him not.
He knelt that we might live
Instructions were complete
“Receiving is to give.”
“Refrain from all deceit.”
He lived without a mark
No sin to stain His Name
Yet, His eyes braved the dark,
For us He took the blame.
Without His sacrifice
We’d all embrace the flame
And miss sweet Paradise
While burdened under shame.
What man of you would give
When faultless thought and deed
Your life that sinners live
To meet a glaring need?
So I accept the gift
In grace and in relief
For shoring up the rift,
But cannot dodge the grief
When thinking of the hate,
Of clenching teeth and fists
Of bruised and bleeding pate,
Of spikes through feet and wrists.
This necessary wrong
Has fire allied with ice.
I weep, yet all along
My thanks cannot suffice.
So beautiful, so sad
The circumstance, the cost.
But for He woolen-clad
We ALL are hopeless lost!

      1996 Derrick L. Williams