Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Forgiveness

 

“Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.”— Oscar Wilde

SOURCE

“I learned a long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It’s a strange truth, but forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s an evolution of the heart.”— Sue Monk Kidd

Midweek Motif ~ Forgiveness

Sorry is the best word to earn happiness and peace if we are the wrong doer. What if when we are the victim? Is it easy to say, ‘to err is human, to forgive divine?’ Is forgiving someone our weakness or strength? Has the word ever posed any challenge in your life?

We are all ears.

Well, let me tell you secretly my heart sincerely yearns for the nemesis of political crooks.

Here are some Forgiveness poems for you:

He Strained My Faith

by Emily Dickinson

He strained my faith —
Did he find it supple?
Shook my strong trust —
Did it then — yield?

Hurled my belief —
But — did he shatter — it?
Racked — with suspense —
Not a nerve failed!

Wrung me — with Anguish —
But I never doubted him —
‘Tho’ for what wrong
He did never say —

Stabbed — while I sued
His sweet forgiveness —
Jesus — it’s your little “John”!
Don’t you know — me?

a total stranger one black day

by E.E. Cummings

a total stranger one black day

knocked living the hell out of me--

who found forgiveness hard because

my(as it happened)self he was

-but now that fiend and i are such

Immortal friend the other’s each

Do Not Be Ashamed

by Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness,
and they will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
“I am not ashamed.” A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will rise
in his evening flight from the hilltop.

The Rest

by Margaret Atwood

The rest of us watch from beyond the fence
as the woman moves with her jagged stride
into her pain as if into a slow race.
We see her body in motion
but hear no sounds, or we hear
sounds but no language; or we know
it is not a language we know
yet. We can see her clearly
but for her it is running in black smoke.
The cluster of cells in her swelling
like porridge boiling, and bursting,
like grapes, we think. Or we think of
explosions in mud; but we know nothing.
All around us the trees
and the grasses light up with forgiveness,
so green and at this time
of the year healthy.
We would like to call something
out to her. Some form of cheering.
There is pain but no arrival at anything.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sanaa’s Midweek Motif will be ~ A Million Years Howl When Voices Whisper Among The Trees )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Mercy

(. . . because this song insisted on being included.)

“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; 

the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, 

where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.” 
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown.

― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

http://izquotes.com/quote/326102

Midweek Motif ~ Mercy

St. Francis in his famous prayer-poem said "where there is injury let me sow pardon."  

Do we, can we, should we?  

If I had the power to be merciful on a grand scale, I would take in cities of refugees and make sure people who worked all their lives were financially secure to retire and . . . .  I would be the mouse taking the thorn out of the lion's paw.   If only.

Your Challenge: Write a new poem on 

an experience of mercy.  

(Would you believe I wrote this prompt and the next one 
before the attacks in Baghdad and Paris?  
Walk in safety, Poets United, and 
as for words?  Don't hold back.)

http://izquotes.com/quote/206082

Excerpt from Time as Memory as Story by  SIMON J. ORTIZ

                        Let’s say it’s half a century later.

                        Let’s say it’s never too late.

                        Let’s say Skull Valley.

                        Let’s say.

                        Let’s say it’s half a century later.

                        Let’s say it’s never too late.

                        Let’s say Skull Valley.

                        Let’s say.

Time has no mercy. It’s there. It stays still or it moves.

And you’re there with it. Staying still or moving with it.

I think it moves. And we move with it. And keep moving.

Eleven years old and soon to be in fifth grade. That’s time.

Boys’ time. Who knows what time it is but them. Eternally.

No one knows time better than they. Always and forever.

Our family. Mama, me, Angie, Gilbert, Earl, Louise.

Kids. Daddy working in Skull Valley for . . .

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

(This song insisted on being included, too.)

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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(Next week, November 25th, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.  Find Information HERE and many other places including Wikipedia.  I just read about Sheroes, a cafe near the Taj Mahal run by victims of acid attacks. Let's make the theme, the next Midweek Motif SURVIVAL.     Thanks, Susan)