Fluency

A great mercy, like a dormant seed,

planted in each heart

biding until its appointed springtime

though innumerable springs

come and go and are endured

beyond enduring,

as such things must be

if we are not to be immolated

in the heat of ourselves

and our accounting,

is pulled like a great anchor

up into the mouth

through the ascending throat

to rest like a gift upon the tongue,

to betray the confounding

malediction of Babel's fall,

to prove, with however much

difficulty

that the most beautiful words

in any language

are,

I forgive.