Getting ready for the season

Isaiah 50 on This Spy Wednesday

I am afraid to die 
        so deeply 
that I don’t live.
         I hide behind the color 
of my skin, my peer group, 
my identification or affiliation.
        I cover insecurity
with feigned piety.  I desire
       to avenge and exact revenge.

You are not that way.  
You set your face 
like an immovable stone, 
        like flint, 
whether to Jerusalem
or to the whip, 
fist to the face, 
or disgraceful spitting.  
         Like when you prayed 
in the garden, 
checked your will against his, 
you flinched not a bit.  

You know man’s substance 
man’s righteous wrath 
is little more than 
a fuzzy snack for moths.

--T.A. Sukany 23 Mar 2021

I think it's great, but
I think it'd be more powerful without v. 3.  I read the chapter in Isaiah and still wonder if it's needed for the poem. I may just like the contrast. It makes the big point.

The 2nd verse is my favorite.

At first, the 1st verse seemed too academic and beyond reach. And then, I thought that may be a way for piety to get played out. I paused at words like identification, affiliation, feigned piety.  Simpler words would not be as strong as what we find in  the simplicity of 2nd verse.

1st verse shows the meanness and deviousness of human beings: avenge and revenge.  Good. Nothing lukewarm.

2nd verse: no reactionary words or actions.  Good. Common-man words here... very nice.

Pat

I had hoped to set a contrast between the narrator and the You of the poem.  I am writing this for the chapel service next Wed here on campus.  I NEED and appreciate your critique!!

Todd

a contrast.  Good job.

Perfect for Holy Week.

Pat

I sure hope that others are reading LastFriday

Do you have any suggestions about the oral presentation of this poem?  I don't normally read my work aloud but the students will SEE and HEAR this one.

Thanks

Todd

This has depth, and they have no copy, so read SLOWLY, observing commas and periods.  Especially your last line, read it very slowly.  (if it's the last line of V. 2)   Take your time, so every word is heard.  Todd, you'll do fine.  And it's a great poem.  It honors the Savior.  Read aloud to yourself.  You'll know where to pause and where to come to a complete stop.  Trust yourself to know and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.  He wants to do that, of course.
I'm putting you on my calendar to pray for you next Wed.

Just now seeing this.

You know, of course, I see the poem with new eyes because it's a new day, and my teenagers are gone, somewhere between here and there.

I like it.  Esp without that one line in last stanza.  I think that made it cumbersome, seemed like too much.  Now, I think it works.

Why "exact"?  Why not something simpler?  Why not "demand"?  No question about the mean,ing that way.  Is that the meaning?

Hope this helps. . . .