On the Hill

I went up in the evening
when the air had begun to cool
and the day was loosening its hold.

From there
the town seemed smaller,
its sounds gentler,
as if everything were willing
to be quiet for a while.

I stood and watched.

People moved below
in the ordinary way—
crossing streets,
pausing at doors,
carrying their unseen things.

And I thought of those
I had once called enemies.

Not as they were in my memory,
but as they are—
walking, breathing,
bearing what they have made
and what has been made in them.

It is a simple fact,
though not an easy one:
we are not separate.

Their sorrow
is not different from mine.
It moves through them
as it moves through me,
changing its face
but not its nature.

I felt no anger then.
Only a kind of seeing.

The wind passed over the hill
and went on.
The light thinned.

Somewhere below,
a door opened.
Someone called a name.

I could not hear the words,
but I knew the sound of it:
the human voice
asking to be answered.

I stayed a little longer,
long enough to understand
something I had resisted:

that mercy is not a feeling
we wait for,
but a way of standing
among others

knowing
what we are capable of
and not turning away.

When I walked down
the path held me.
Stone underfoot,
even in the dim light.

The town received me again
without comment.

And though nothing had changed,
not really,
I carried with me
a quieter weight:

the knowledge
that we are each
a mixture of harm and tenderness,

and that, sometimes,
we can choose
which one
to offer.