Author: Cassie, Kaleo New Orleans Staff
Mercy begets mercy,
and your presumption is telling,
and justice – it costs a lot – a lot more than they’re selling it for.
Mercy is not a price-point
And people are not a product
And you are not a commodity,
But you will be the unbuilding of this hissing misappropriated as, holy.
Do justice,
love kindness,
walk humbly with me…
I burn with the exact same lust and greed that breeds blindness,
and perverts humanity from family to concept to outcast
as if I’m not the refugee.
A wanderer with no home.
Or neighbor to nothing to panhandling to avoid it
like ‘go work for your honey.’
(Irony is that we’re both trying to take your money.)
It doesn’t sound that different now,
As every coveted idol sinks with the same masters
I keep running back to, or mirroring.
Like Bethlehem means that I could never earn your blessing.
Like protecting a deflecting remnant reflecting literally anything but the terms of covenant,
and yet still in the scandal that you are you cover it.
And it can be a shame-filled thing to see
– see –
like I know my lips aren’t clean when I hear you speak.
…in that day, declares the Lord,
“I will pardon and pass over,
have compassion and gather
back my sons
and show steadfast love
to my love.”
Foolishness shames wisdom.
With your name an inquiry,
and the answer “None,”
I will despise all of the shame
until the work is done.
I AM both humiliation and liberation.
I AM both indignation and vindication.
I AM both the indication of need and the means of justification
and I will be your end.
Now, in my mind I wonder:
was it more monumental that my life changed
or that a life had changed before my eyes.