Tonight I am feeling the sadness of all the things
you have been through. The stories you allowed me
to know, that you poured out, the shared inklings
of what life has been for you. Evenings when we
lay together there was nothing that you could
not tell me, until I thought I knew you better
than myself. And I felt that my attentions would
make you free, undo every fetter.
I was a caring witness--or so it seemed-
to those events. Of course, it can be a kind of
foolishness to think that people are redeemed
this way, can be healed by the gift of love.
That a lifetime of pain is dissolved, replaced
with something kinder. That nothing goes to waste.