Sorrow and Joy Poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sorrow and Joy
By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sorrow and Joy:
startled senses striking suddenly on our
seem, at the first approach, all but impossible
of just distinction one from the other:
even as frost and heat at the first keen contact
burn us alike

Joy and Sorrow,
hurled from the height of heaven in meteor fashion,
flash in an arc of shining menace o’er us.
Those they touch are left
stricken amid the fragments
of their colorless, usual lives.
Imperturbable mighty,
ruinous and compelling,

Sorrow and Joy
–summoned or all unsought for–
processionally enter.
Those they encounter
they transfigure, investing them
with strange gravity
and a spirit of worship.

Joy is rich in fears:
Sorrow has its sweetness.
Undistinguishable from each other
they approach us from eternity,
equally potent in their power and terror.
From every quarter
mortals come hurrying:
part envious, part awe-struck,
swarming, and peering into the portent;
where the mystery sent from above us
is transmuting into the inevitable
order of earthly human drama.

What then is Joy? What then is Sorrow?
Time alone can decide between them,
when the immediate poignant happening
lengthens out to continuous wearisome suffering;
when the labored creeping moments of daylight
slowly uncover the fullness of our disaster
Sorrow’s unmistakable features.

Then do most of our kind
sated, if only by the monotony
of unrelieved unhappiness,
turn away from the drama, disillusioned,
uncompassionate.

o ye mothers, and loved ones-then, ah, then
comes your hour, the hour for true devotion.
Then your hour comes, ye friends and brothers!
Loyal hearts can change the face of Sorrow,
softly encircle it with love’s most gentle unearthly radiance.