Sunday, July 1, 2012

To Forgive is Wisdom; To Forget is Genius



Nadya's hollyhocks in a Russian village near the Volga.

***

The Telling that Changes Everything XIII.

March 18, 2012

People need our clarity, our joy, how 
we do a stake-out to catch the errant heart
when it suddenly opens wide.
–The Telling That Changes Everything IV.

To flourish, we allow the mind to empty, 
the feelings to experience hunger.  Then 
the words and the love rush in.
–The Telling That Changes Everything V.

Learn and learn.  Learn humility again.
You can’t always get what you want.
You want to save people from the fate
that looms because they’re afraid to take
the only path that frees them.  Am I
afraid?  Afraid to let them learn the
hard way?  It’s how I’ve learned, how I
still learn.  They may well fail you, too, 
but mostly themselves.  You have
knowledge they need but run from.  
Old Gulley Jimson’s “to forgive is
wisdom; to forget is genius” helps
you now.  To let go when you feel
that tug of war, that will to win in
the other person, that stubborn streak
like a thick brick wall, well-mortared,
is to know true compassion.  She
learns faster when you cease striving.
He hears his heart’s true love song
when you stop singing.  It took you
seventy-five years to touch this home
truth?  Be grateful you stepped ashore,
however wounded in soul and body.
Comforts beyond your present
imagining lie straight ahead.

1 comment:

  1. Oh so beautiful, Judy. Very touching, and I love the picture of hollyhocks.

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