After Forgiveness...

  PAD challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

 

After the bold, bare facts of love have etched their indelible knell

Like landmarks on a glove that pulses with worlds too complex to spell

After the cold, hard truth smacks us in faces once brave with fool’s scorn

After the heart has weathered being stretched, crushed, broken, hunger-torn

We learn to live, to love and give instead of scheming how to get

The aftertaste of wonder lingers; hope soft-mingled with regret

After we reach much higher than the ways that naked eye can see

After Forgiveness, God’s grace hones from bones of pride, humility

© Janet Martin