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# Learning Reconciliation
- URL: https://randalljgreene.com/learning-reconciliation/
- Published: 2018-07-12T19:02:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-10-16T19:03:47.000Z
- Description: Peace is costly—it is not made by ignoring pain or hurt or history. Peace comes with honestly and humility, a commitment to seeing and listening to one another.
- Author: Randall Greene
- Tags: Poetry, #Import 2025-01-12 03:41

My friend, my brother, you know how we have  
Received too much for life.  
Our time has surely not been wasted.  
Today, and yesterday, and the day before  
I opened my ears and my eyes  
To know what you have said.  
We spoke and smiled and swore  
Never would we raise weapons to fight  
Nor take anger to our bed  
Nor bear thrones through the door.

My friend, my brother, I believe there is  
No light like the past.  
Time has built wounds on me.  
The Spirit of the World, it lives and grows  
In our minds and in our acts—  
Look at me! and see.  
You lost me my love, from Passion’s throes  
Which I had found in the last  
Ghost of a haunted dream.  
But I pardon the wind, where’er it blows.

My friend, my brother, we discern the same  
Shadows breathing between us.  
Need we spare the truth, just to preserve  
Peace and union, such as befit  
The hope we to the future entrust?  
So shall we someday again deserve  
In here, this place together to sit  
And reminisce and discuss  
The lessons we’ve taken so long to learn  
And the pain involved in learning it.