Reconciliation by Walt Whitman
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin--I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
How powerful is this poem, this simple declaration of human love and forgiveness. If only all the world could take such a stand and be reconciled with all its wrongs, it would be a better place. For time can make the tensions fade and have us forget the opposing views. And in the end, forgiveness is as simple as that.
