Today forgiveness is like the tracks
in the snow at the park where the skis
might follow, and the following is easy.
There are many other ways that one
might go, but it seems simple to move
through the trees in these slots that
were made for people like me who
are afraid of getting hurt. I’ve been injured
recently. I imagine painful things. Though the path,
it hosts no mountain lions, no volcanoes,
no dragons, no skunks, no traps.
I have to laugh at how straightforward it is
to forgive. You do nothing and it arrives.
And around the corner, it’s still there.
Of course it happens in its own time.
How pure the impulse to want
to share its grace. So much freedom!
Isn’t it ironic, what now feels safe.
But we cannot lead a horse to water
nor a friend to mercy nor clemency.
God, the sun is incredible here, the way
it sifts through the empty trees, the way
it catches in expanses of snow rife with facets
made by transitioning warm to cold to warm to cold.
It’s warm. We all transition. There was a time when
I was so full of anger I didn’t even know that forgiveness
was part of the landscape. And today,
it is effortless—so effortless I nearly didn’t name it
as I shifted my weight from one ski to the other
in grooves I didn’t need to reinvent, my poles
moving almost of their own accord, a rhythm
not so unlike the beating of your heart, my heart.