The first person I forgive today is myself
for staying up too late last night—how
I loved reading into the late hours, the story
crooking its finger at me, tethering me
to its pages. What good does it do
to call myself stupid, to lash out at the part of me
who thrives on those slender moments
when I am alone and the house is quiet
and I am the sister of words. No, better to tell
that late night reader that I’m tired.
Better to smile at her, though she thwarts
the morning me who loves to rise feeling rested.
She does not apologize. I know I will have
to forgive her again. Somehow, when I start
with myself, it makes it easier all day long
to practice forgiveness for others—
the slow drivers, the complainers, the bullies,
the pouters. They probably have happier,
calmer, more rational selves, too,
that they are also thwarting. All day I practice seeing
the heart of a person. All day, when I yawn, I smile.
Oh, Rosemerry. How I am devouring this poem; how needfully hungry I am for it. How gratefully glad I am because of it. And, again, because of you. Yesterday, I tried to forgive an irksome and vexatious co-worker, but it never took. That I had to unexpectedly work with her, yesterday, when she filled in for another co-worker who wasn’t able to come in, it didn’t help. Also, I also struggle with the part of me that want to stay up, who argues that reading, especially while in bed, is close enough to sleeping, only to have the early-morning alarm jar me much to early into my day. And pondering the possibility that my beloved co-worker also struggles with their own dark and morning self, certainly alters my perceptions; provides one more area where we are quite alike. Thank you for today’s poem, this today. (Can you see the weight lifting off my shoulders from here?)
“Slender moments.” “Sister of words. I love these two images. And, “thwarts,” is such the spot-on word choice.
I’ve some forgiving to git to.
it’s not an easy practice, is it? And especially the self. I am really working on it since this poem, too …
This puts me in mind of Yeats’s great poem, “A Dialogue of Self and Soul,” which ends:
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43294/a-dialogue-of-self-and-soul
Great minds, eh…?
forgive myself the lot … ahhh, Yeats really got it, didn’t he … and the blessing that comes then, the sweetness. we are blest by everything. thank you, Joe, for reminding me.
I was awake at 3 AM trying to decide whether to listen to my sleep app or read that book. I turned on my phone to do the right thing and try to sleep. Instead I find this awesome poem and read until I was sleepy. Thank you once again.
there we were in the same boat! hugs to you!
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