Poetry 9: Amazing News from an Outsider

AMAZING NEWS FROM AN OUTSIDER

NOTE: The Japanese people historically have been very race conscious. Even foreign words cannot be spelled with the same syllabary as native words. For one to give freely to a foreigner was an amazing thing. Many early Christian missionaries to Japan were crucified. Today many remember with amazement their sacrifice.

The poetic form used here is a sedoka which predates the haiku. Its form is of stanzas of six lines, with 5,7,7,5,7,7 syllables in each line.


So foreign, this news,
Brought by one also foreign,
Strange news also to himself
Of deeds in a land
Neither his nor mine, yet both:
Good News, precious, costly, free.

Good news of One's Love
Beyond what those of any
Land or race will sacrifice,
For their own people:
For those who were not His, He,
Giving what is past all price,

Transforms my small worth
To value incomp'rable,
Calls us who are but strangers
His own family.
For us lost ones, He, cross-bound,
Dies. Once-dead, we with Him live.