Poem - Tom Brennan

God’s Baksheesh

By Tom Brennan (aka: Brentomnan)

God gave him ‘baksheesh’ of a sunlit soul,

A vision clear, to see ‘out past the cloud’,

A path, unconscious in it’s festive goal

Of all the ‘narrows’ of the sordid crowd,

A sense of mateship that was strong and true,

With sympathy, unrecking all it’s sway;

And guileless ‘plannings’, with the will ‘to do’,

In faith untarnished to the close of Day.

God gave him ‘baksheesh’ of the ‘noble chance’,

The ‘call’ to ‘harvest’, in the ‘hunger-year’,

The load to lighten and the wound to ‘stance’,

The need of ‘cheering’ and the heart to ‘cheer’,

The quiet daring of the hero-kind,

To smile at ‘death’ tho’ ‘death’ had called the ‘game’,

The sacred shyness of the soul-strong mind,

With ‘deeds of good disclosed’ it’s only ‘shame’.

Gos gave him ‘baksheesh’, and in turn he gave

To God, threefold the ‘talons’ of his ‘trust’:

The ‘Faith’ that sanctifies his lonely grave,

The ‘Hope’ that rings the triumph of his dust,

The ‘Charity’ that little prized it’s worth

But rend’ring ‘all’, made ‘all’, it’s only span,

And in it’s last great blood-gift, welling forth,

Proclaimed him ‘God’ to ‘God’ and ‘Man’ to ‘Man’.