For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.

He prayed for opening, cleansing, freeing from sin
The choir sang, Lord have mercy
Words were read and more were said
Allusions made to evil done good undone
But in trying to say: strengthen you in all goodness
He could but cough and barely wheezed eternal life.
There is no strength without weakness
Wholly embraced, suffered, honored, and transfigured
Weak is the shrewd twin of strong, oft leading the two along.