FreeVerse ~ Income Tax Day

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I shared a prayer/poem from Walter Brueggemann in an earlier post. Although not a poet in the traditional sense, his prayers read like poetry. Considering tomorrow is "tax day" in the US, I am using Brueggemann's "Income Tax Day" prayer from his book Prayers for a Privileged People as my FreeVerse entry this week. Although I can't get the indentions visually correct, the words still retain the beauty.

Income Tax Day

On this day of internal revenue
some of us are paid up,
some of us owe,
some of us await a refund,
some of us have no income to tax.

But all of us are taxed,
by war,
by violence,
by anxiety,
by deathliness.

And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

We render to Caesar...
to some it feels like a grab,
to some it is clearly a war tax,
to some - some few -
it is a way to contribute to the common good.

In any case we are haunted
by what we render to Caesar,
by what we might render to you,
by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
when what you ask is an "easy yoke":
to do justice
to love mercy
to walk humbly with you.

Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.