One Loves Someone Or Doesn't Poem by Donal Mahoney

I came back to You late
and still don't understand
why the Father asked You to

die for me and everyone else.
I learned the Ten Commandments
as a child but never learned to love.

I don't think one learns to love.
One loves someone or doesn't.
One likes someone or doesn't.

But there's a canyon, isn't there,
between the two- like and love.
I viewed your Father, I'm afraid,

the way I viewed my own.
My father did his best but he
was another fallen wretch like me

no different than Adam and Eve.
I have never understood why
Adam and Eve's fall from grace

fell on everyone else and me.
Why must everyone pay for what
Adam and Eve did, I'd ask.

Now I no longer need an answer.
Now I simply need to remember
what I have always known

yet must wait to understand—
You died on the cross
and rose from the dead

for a wretch like me because
the Father asked You to.
That's good enough for me.