Cold Comforters

Anyone can be comforted by pietism.
Sentiment is just that, common beyond comment
and many resist accepting it at face value.

Such sentimentality also avoids recognition
until it has to surface, then it is obvious.
What becomes even clearer after that
are the limits attached to such comfort.
It always fails the spirits of the truly afflicted.

That is when we feel that our support
is like that of those who comforted Job
who failed him when they could not prove
to him the truth of what knew was his virtue.