To Forgive Is...

I just finished the last 4 pages of my journal and then I turned the page to where I had copied the following poem. And it made me feel really good.

To Forgive Is...
To begin
and there is so much to forgive:
for one, your parents, one and two,
out of whose dim haphazard coupling
you sprang forth roaring, indignantly alive.
For this, whatever else followed,
innocent and guilty, forgive them.
If it is day, forgive the sun
its white radiance blinding the eye;
forgive also the moon for dragging the tides,
for her secrets, her half heart of darkness;
whatever the season, forgive it its various
assaults--floods, gales, storms
of ice--and forgive its changing;
for its vanishing act, stealing what you love
and what you hate, indifferent,
forgive time; and likewise forgive its fickle
consort, memory, which fades
the photographs of all you can't remember;
forgive forgetting, which is chaste
and kinder than you know;
forgive your age and the age you were
when happiness was afire in your blood
and joy sang hymns in the trees;
forgive, too, those trees, which have died;
and forgive death for taking them,
inexorable as God, then forgive God
His terrible grandeur, His unspeakable
Name; forgvive, too, the poor devil
for a celestial fall no worse than your own.
When you have forgiven whatever is of earth,
of sky, of water, whatever is named,
whatever remains nameless,
forgive, finally, your own sorry self,
clothed in temporary flesh
the breath and blood of you
already dying.
Dying, forgiven, now you begin.

Pamela Spiro Wagner, "Divided Minds"

The book I found this in is this amazing account written by Pamela and her twin sister about the struggle they both experienced because of Pamela's diagnosis of schizophrenia. It's a beautifully written and incredibly interesting book and this is one of my favorite poems.