* A GRACE OF TWO KINDS

Composed at Thanksgiving, 1976,
Yale Divinity School

 You

can’t say
grace  
if you
don’t feel
gratitude.

And
in this
old land 
“I paid
for it,  so I
deserve it”
is an
ongoing
national
attitude.

Sure,
we mortals
croon,  
‘cause we
walked on
the moon,
minutely
divining its
latitude.

But
till time
comes to
end    
or
there's no
more to
spend 
there'll be
no
real change
in
our
habitude.

'Cause
the trouble
with grace 
is that
new time
and space 
is
perennially  
bloating
our
vanitude.

What we
need
right now  as we
sit down to chow 
is a mirror,
to check out
our
finitude.