Unforgiving

by John Herlihy

We speak of the importance to forgive,

We refer to ways we have of forgiving.

The verb doesn’t exist how to unforgive,

But we know that life can be unforgiving.

We invoke the feeling in the verb forgive,

We never invoke the verb to unforgive.

To prefer to sweep away the entire whole,

Based on a grievance that a single act stole.

Before you remember you were wronged,

Remember all the people you have wronged.

Reject a sense of injury, the injury disappears,

Being unforgiving feels like sharpened spears.

Nature often unforgiving, think unrelenting sun,

The scorching desert from dust and heat spun.

The act of forgiving invokes image of the dove,

Seeing harmony and peace in the mirror of love.

An act unforgiving sits at the well of despair,

Without any possibility or hope of a prayer.

People stand on this unrelenting principle,

Its echo resounding as an attitude biblical.

The heaviness of forgiving, filling the air,

The lightness of unforgiving, nothing there.

Dare I say a sense of courage in forgiving,

While a sense of cowardice in unforgiving.

Most people schooled in life’s treacheries,

Just as they are schooled in life’s miseries.

Small wonder little inclination to forgive,

With a greater inclination to unforgive.

Recall the age-old adage forgive and forget,

Lest we carry the excess baggage of regret.

Those who forgive most to be most forgiven,

The law of karma will prevail, that is a given.

We often hear we best forgive our enemies,

We seldom hear we best forgive our friends.

The question now is this: do you forgive me,

Or deep down, in shadows, still unforgiving.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Friday 22 August 2025