Living Tree Poetry

Let me recall how to love
though I’m hardly good at it.


Love is kind, and patient,
which means long suffering.

Love, a mirror, that in our peers
we see ourselves,

the good and not so gentle
to the eye,

that we might ask ourselves,

‘what grace is this that covers me
that I cannot extend?’

 
And love is not jealous,
burning envy.

Love, is a gift we give ourselves
that others are a blessing besides,

and not the ends of all our needs,
the source of our sustaining –

without which,

we awaken thirsty
and live with hunger self-consuming.


And love is not irritable, defensive,
keeping score.

Love is the list at the end of the day
that absolves itself by morning.

Has returned again in gracious measures
to us ever undeserving,

that in the space excised by pain

is a well mined
for the filling.


And love is just and honest,
ever giving us a voice.

That we’re not asked to hide
downtrodden,

defending ourselves from wraithlike
fear,

but with the mouthpiece of heaven,

can claim a place
sheltered in peace,

with fairness our common ground.


Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
March 2020


‘Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.’

1 Cor 13: The Message