Poem – The Softening
The Softening
There was a time
I walked through the world
with a guarded chest,
seeing certain faces
as storms I needed to outrun.
But compassion has its own
slow weathering.
A patient river
that smooths the stone
without asking permission.
Now, when I think of them—
the sharp ones, the cold ones—
I see not the battle,
but the cliff-face beneath,
shaped by winds I never knew.
Some hearts grow thorns
because the soil was hard,
and tenderness
had nowhere soft
to take root.
And somehow,
in the wide quiet of this new seeing,
I find myself offering kindness
like a small lantern
left at the edge of their night.
Not because they earned it,
and not because I am virtuous,
but because my own heart
feels lighter
when nothing is held as an enemy.
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