Can You Tell Me?

This is a poem written in response to today’s prompt.

What principles define how you live?

Can You Tell Me?

Can you tell me
what principles you live by?
Not the slogans,
not the polished phrases you post when you’re feeling righteous,
but the heartbeat stuff,
the code you keep when no one’s lookin’?

Can you tell me what you love
without tellin’ me what you hate?
Can you lift up beauty
without draggin’ someone through the mud in name of the point you’re trying to make?

Can you speak about peace
without startin’ a fight?
Can you name what lifts you
without reminding me of what broke you?

Tell me
what wakes you up in the morning,
what keeps you soft when life goes hard,
what keeps you honest
when the world pays better for fake?

Show me the river you keep goin’ back to,
not the desert that almost took you out.
Show me the spark,
the one that’s still burnin’ in your chest,
after all the winds tried to blow it out.

Don’t give me your list of enemies.
Give me your reasons to hope.
Give me your reasons to stay.
Give me your reasons to love,
without tellin’ me who you can’t.

©2025 Rainer Bantau 

All Rights Reserved 

Until my next post…

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

You can now find my articles in The Christian Grandfather Magazine.

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