just below our fear

There are words in us

that don't know how

to get to the surface.

Words hidden in our marrow

afraid to show themselves

concerned the world will end

if they are uttered.

Words that cross 

the river of pain

that wish to tell the world

how much love is hidden

just below our fear.

And some of these words

sometimes find their way

to live among us

in the trust to hear them,

words that spin our compass

anger and loneliness redirected

by insight and forgiveness,

words like mercy and compassion,

words we never trusted to exist.

Words hide in the strangest places,

under stones, in clouds,

in a moment of a friend's kindness,

in a moment to your generosity;

in poems beginning their first line

climbing happily into the heart singing

how close the moon comes 

when we trust the night.

Words even hide in other words.

 Mercy hides in the hesitant pause,

questioning how much can be trusted

to the tongue, to the pen.

Invoking their true voice

rise to the surface

to sing their original song.

 ~ Stephen Levine

from Becoming Kuan Yin