Vulnerable Poem by Peter Eliastam

An easy target, shot at from the hip,
With sneer of scorn and curling of the lip.
Beyond accounting, tongue-lashed with a whip.
For this, it would appear, I have been born.

But I can live, a Prisoner of Hope,
And can forgive, with far-forgiving scope,
The ones who wound because they cannot cope,
Or kiss away a tear, or pray, or mourn.

I have been sheared of all I feared to lose,
Of every argument that I might use
In self-defence, apart from Grace to choose
The place where I may live “In Christ, ” untorn.