The Turning Mill
The people I let down are in my mind.
How can we mend a thing that can’t be mended?
How can we sleep till dawn? We traveled on
so far that there was no road home for us.
Is there no God to gaze on what we’ve done –
to touch a troubled heart, a tender soul?
Can’t we be happy after all?
And grace – how will we find it? Will it come?
The world rotates, and I stand still:
the sun climbs up and down again.
Like grain brought to the turning mill,
I am made finer by my pain.
What price forgiveness? Just as if the hand
were never raised, the rain had stopped, the water
lay untouched, and the pool had fishes yet?
There is no turning back to when the dawn
had not brought in its train the cloth of hurt:
the dreams that haunt the waking hours, the long
slow road of trouble. But the clocks reset;
the coil unknots, the root grows past the rock.
The fishes swim, the hand falls, the heart empties,
the gate swings open, and the waiting’s done.
Edited:
We say, “Forgive us,” and the Lord
may do just that – while those we’ve bruised
are free to offer that reward
like honey that the heart has stored
in good time, without feeling used.
The Turning Mill
I can't really connect with all that suffering mantra John, and regret/remorse seems another weight. Self-forgiveness seems wiser than the judgement of 'superiors'. Anyway perhaps 'the burl unknots' or 'the burr unknots' for heart to avoid repetition.
Yes, i imagine this poem will speak more to some than to others, that's only natural.
I think i can simply say that what interests me is forgiveness as a process, nto an act. Forgiveness is achieved, and it takes work in my experience. There was a recent case of a murderer forgiven by the victim's family, who were asked how they could forgive the killer just like that. To which they said, "No, not just like that." This as i say dovetails with my experience.
Forgiveness is for the forgiver. Who gives a crap whether the aggressor has repented? But for the victim, it sets you free.
Forgiveness to my mind is also a profoundly democratic process, i don't see any superiors involved.
Now as for the aggressor, if someone chooses to forgive them, so much the nicer for them. There are of course no guarantees, and asking for forgiveness is to my mind, let us say indelicate.
Thank you, Phil, for the thought on how to avoid repeating the word heart.
Cheers,
John
I think i can simply say that what interests me is forgiveness as a process, nto an act. Forgiveness is achieved, and it takes work in my experience. There was a recent case of a murderer forgiven by the victim's family, who were asked how they could forgive the killer just like that. To which they said, "No, not just like that." This as i say dovetails with my experience.
Forgiveness is for the forgiver. Who gives a crap whether the aggressor has repented? But for the victim, it sets you free.
Forgiveness to my mind is also a profoundly democratic process, i don't see any superiors involved.
Now as for the aggressor, if someone chooses to forgive them, so much the nicer for them. There are of course no guarantees, and asking for forgiveness is to my mind, let us say indelicate.
Thank you, Phil, for the thought on how to avoid repeating the word heart.
Cheers,
John
John
Forgiveness can't be written about directly unless you want to sound like a special person..
Just write about the sounds and sights that are tangential to that feeling.
There's nothing bad about this piece, but the abstract title is off- putting.
Just write about the pub sign swinging in the night as you wanted some one to forgive you, then you will be allright
Tony
Forgiveness can't be written about directly unless you want to sound like a special person..
Just write about the sounds and sights that are tangential to that feeling.
There's nothing bad about this piece, but the abstract title is off- putting.
Just write about the pub sign swinging in the night as you wanted some one to forgive you, then you will be allright
Tony
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Robert Graves
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Robert Graves