Love Is Not Strength

Today’s poem is a poem inspired by 1 Corinthians 13. It was written during a season when after attempts to love and minister to others, the love was not enough to change the course of the circumstances that were playing out. The poem’s title and theme was borne out of the sadness that love does not leverage an advantage over others or circumstances. It isn’t that love isn’t strong, but it has no coercive power. Love leaves you vulnerable to pain and exposed to wounding. The poem is titled, “Love Is not Strength.”

Love is not strength
Though it is patient and kind.
Not that it doesn’t desire
Or burn hot as fire,
Yet it does not quit.
It takes a seat to the side,
And there it will sit
Through time’s tides and troubles. 
It does what it can
And with you stands
Ready to help, paying no mind
To impatient demands.

Love does not shine.
It does not put me first
Or over others climb
Or grab with greed, yelling,
Mine. Mine. 
Mine!

Love cannot keep you from grief
But only makes sadness more certain
Only makes the inevitable hurting
Of goodbye sure.

Love cannot keep others from leaving.
It cannot make them stay.
Love is not enough
To keep any from going away.
It cannot keep.
But of those wrongs, the slights,
The thoughtless words said in jest, 
The deeds that were nothing near the best
One could be?
Love keeps no record of the wrong
Whether they happened today or time long
Since gone.

Love cannot heal. 
It cannot make anyone well.
If they are sick and dying,
It’s not like some spell
That can magically make them right.
Though if you love, love just may keep you awake
Night after night
After night.

Love makes no demand.
It does not have to have its say
Which means that things may not go your way.
And so love oftentimes weeps
Or grieves what it may not keep.

Love takes no delight in the cruel
Or wicked things others say or do,
But love rejoices in the true.
And when seeing the truth
Love bears all things,
And in so doing
Carries the weight of waiting
For the other to come ‘round
Or for the time when what was lost
Is at last found.

Love cannot keep, make, or do,
Yet it believes all things which means
He still believes in you.
Yes, love may be blind.
It cannot see the hope.
(Who hopes in what they can see?)
But with hope in faith
Love looks down the drive,
Expecting any moment to see you.
You, who were thought to be dead, alive
Walking up to the house.

Love is not strength
Though it endures all things:
Whether fearing the grave
Or the pain of death’s sting.
Love never fails,
Is on time, never late.
For it always hopes, always trusts,
And waits and waits
And waits…

© Randall Edwards 2021

Artwork: James Tissot 1836 – 1902 The Prodigal Son in Modern Life: The Return, oil on canvas — c. 1882 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC