Caritas’ Avarice

“Charity” by Giotto

Alas, what piece of work is a gift!
Blessings from our sworn fathers
Yet to be brought away from our hands
Truly a magnanimous, humble decision
Not to acquiesce but to assent
Yet He robs us of his opportune gifts
For the meek—to the giver—he sifts
Yet He fills us full once more
Like a perpetual hollow vessel
Doomed to be filled and emptied
He mocks us as we receive
He laughs at us as we give
He laughs, He laughs, He laughs!
In due time he must take them all!
Alas, yet too soon we were enamored
Of the sojourn on the quintessential bliss
Of the solace on our mortal plight
A perpetual plight, from womb to tomb
We are the smirk of the matron
As she stomps on the Fruits of Labor
As she holds a receptacle of fruits and luxury
As she gives her worthless, deadened heart
To her infinitesimal Deity above her head
A head garnered with wreath of greed
And to her meek visage that is us:
Looking straight upward—to the Haloed One
His affable countenance—a subtle subterfuge!
Consumed! By the avarice of the worldly hand
Away from the sight of the minute God
He laughs! He laughs, He laughs!

The Sublime

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich

I put myself atop a mount
Near a cliff—a sea of fog beneath
To see from as much a height
Obscured lest be seen…

I leer upon heightened creatures—creations
Across the immaculate mist—
As sublime as a pious porphyry
As radiant as a stained glass
on a Sunday morning.

Yet come, Night! Still be never brighter!
Misty fogs be colder—bleaker!
Lucid sight be weaker—feebler!
As the Sublime, lo, sings my departure!