If 20/20 hindsight sees,

We live ectopic to the now.

Attempt to scry what is to be,

Myopic eyes will miss the how.

For one to find deceit ahead,

The rear view mirror must adjust.

The mirror’s caption, left unread,

Distorts the modicum of trust.

The mind, it sometimes will not let

Us choose what we can take away,

Though we may wish we could forget

About what others do and say.

So please remember every life

Must have some joy for all the pain.

A smile you lend amid your strife,

Then might upon you shine again.

The truth, corrective lenses aid

Mistakes for every eye to see.

Regret but adds to choices made

In shadows, acts of misery.

For truth can be much stranger still,

Beyond the bard’s fictitious song.

But honesty, to lies fulfills

What was suspected all along.

For if we dare to stare direct

At tribulations overcome,

From mountains, molehills do reflect

In hopeful eyes for what’s to come.

Desire and expectation, seeds

We plant to overgrow our fears,

But love can clear out all those weeds

When disappointment leads to tears.

There are some heinous deeds and acts

Whose very truth can stop a breath.

The kind whose grisly, gruesome facts

Go well beyond a wrongful death.

What if forgiveness, none can see,

And neither do they think it right,

Because the murderer, still free

Is why they lock their doors at night?

Forgiveness is a crucial act

To lift the burden from within,

Compassion felt for other’s lack

Helps one to learn to love again.

Despite a family torn apart

In ways that they would never choose,

The families they might one day start

Could be the ones they also bruise.

For indignation’s loathsome weight

Will soon become too much to bear.

In time, the burden turns to hate

On shoulders pity drove to share.

Though scant attention is no salve,

When it would tarry, stray and wend;

The moment could be all we have,

Although it never seems to end.

The eyes are such that we cannot

Behold the future through the past,

Forgive yourself if you forgot

To memory, moments go so fast.

To decades go the days that turn,

When hearts, time calcifies to stone.

Yet, those who choose forgiveness learn

Anathema, love is to alone.