If, as later rabbis aver, loving-
kindness stands foremost among the virtues—
Rab Samlai going so far as to say

Torah begins and ends with its pursuit—
the psalmist attributes such steadfast grace
chiefly to the Holy One, who bestows

compassion so tightly bound to justice
that any effort to rebuild the world
requires both be lived in proper measure.

Twinned gifts unearned but welcomed, demanding
only wholehearted cooperation—
so slender a duty for love so dear—

while in exchange, all that is broken, flawed,
ugly, disgraceful, and hidden will melt
away like slag poured from a crucible,

leaving each creature astonished to find
what it once took for merit turned to dross
in the awful furnace of forgiveness.

 

 

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Brian Volck is a pediatrician and the author of a poetry collection, Flesh Becomes Word (Dos Madres), and a memoir, Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words (Cascade). He is a Benedictine oblate at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert near Abiquiu, New Mexico.

 

 

 

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash