When Victory Is Not Enough

When Victory Is Not Enough

Things could have been different

Had a certain grace been in play,

When some spat on in victory

A sacerdote that day.

In exuberance of celebration

Through a mandate of a few,

They gloried a perceived new nation,

Collecting what they deemed due.

Not enough to claim victory

And move on in life,

Sticks of intellectual hickory,

On their enemy they swipe.

The sacerdote in passing

Accepted spit in his face;

Though an object of trashing,

Silently he radiated His grace.

This is not the first time

When retribution was employed.

Remember when Thaddeus and Georges,

Wanted their enemies destroyed?

Thaddeus loathed his southern cousins

During four years of strife;

Even after his victory,

He twisted more his knife.

Had compassion taken hold

Of his heart and his mind,

Perhaps something bold,

Could have converted the blind.

Georges's enmity toward

His eastern border,

Thwarted any possibility

Of a redeemed new world order.

Instead of forgiveness

He piled on the guilt,

In hope of destroying his neighbor

While grasping the hilt.

Charleston appeared a flash in reversal

Of payback, hatred and retribution.

Forgiveness and love was their constant rehearsal

Mother Emanuel’s church expressed the solution.

But haters and loathers

Took over later on,

Shouting shame to grace encroachers

With all sharp tongues they don.