The Elect
Take
that long-suffering slave: if she
instead
Were master,
could descent dissent and shed
Vile
arrogance slaves shirk and in its stead
Renounce
the life that life inherited?
Take
that starved, broken pauper: if instead
Of life
so harsh he often would be dead
He had a fuller purse, was fuller fed
Would
he have known to offer paupers bread?
Take
that queer soul who's “different”: if
instead
He'd
turned out “normal” would he think a dead
Queer's
better than a live one, too, and spread
Intolerance
majorities have bred?
Is
this not Grace? Spared from such tests
as these,
Has
God not favored his minorities?
In a time of Trump when I fear many devalue diversity and many more do not see the frequent grace in minority, struggle, and lack of material wealth, I highlight this poem from Charms and Knots. I also highlight the poem for a time when many no longer appreciate the endless powers of formalist verse. Apart from the inherent power of sonnet form, twelve same-rhymed lines followed by two fresh rhymes actually participate in the grace and rarity of difference (indexical expression of the point to use Peirce's terminology).
