A Study of The Embrace

Before forgiveness,
there was a wound.

Before prayer,
there was a silence
too deep for words.

And before the soul could rise,
someone bent
toward what had fallen.

A presence.
A tenderness.
A willingness to hold
what the world
had learned to abandon.

The heavens rested
in their ancient silence.

Something stirred
between earth and sky.

A tenderness
older than judgment.'

A mercy
remembering its source
in the first breath
of creation.

One body
leaned into another.

The space between them
softened.

Two sorrows
entered a single breath.

Below them,
a man stood watching.
He had built his ladders
toward heaven,
one rung upon another,
believing ascent
to be the measure
of becoming.

He had sought holiness
in height,
wisdom in distance,
and strength
in solitude.

Now he witnessed
a different movement.

Love descending
toward the wounded.
Grace finding its way
through the weight
of another's sorrow.

And the one who was held
carried the wound still.

The sorrow remained.
The long memory
of abandonment
lived within the body.

Yet something
had changed.

Another had entered
the silence.
Another had come
to dwell
where suffering
had made its home.

And in that dwelling,
mercy became flesh.

Perhaps this is
the beginning of grace.

The quiet turning
of one soul
toward another.

The courage to see.
The devotion to remain.

The tenderness
of being received.

The ladders stand
beneath an open sky.

The earth continues
its ancient turning.

And between two figures
suspended
in the fading light,
a deeper truth
comes into being.

The soul discovers
its own reflection
in the tenderness
of another.

And there,
within the embrace,
the wounded heart
begins to breathe.

To be held
is sometimes
the first remembering
of how to live.