In his grief, he asked the angel hanging overhead,
his faceless confessor :
Why, Lord, do sinners’ ways so grossly prosper ?
How can you allow the Lie so fatly to preside ?
And the angel answered :
I invited you to my feast,
my laden tables, my radiant halls,
and for my reward,
through each fraught breath of human history,
you’ve tortured me with nails.
Rogan Wolf, February 2017
The question “Why do sinners’ ways prosper ?” was taken from “Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend,” a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins.