Rita Kelly

Amnesty Day

We name each other, bright faces,
Feeling into who we are, who we might become
In a time beyond this time. Tentative.
Sensitive too on this grey day in Carlow.
This present, this gift of ourselves to each other
And to all that cries out to us beyond
These sloping walls, these windows cut
And angled above us so that we might
Suspect the sky, that is view it from below.

We rinse our words with new meaning –
We rinse our words, cleaning them of the patina built up with use,
Abuse and the act of being thrown about.
We discover that Amnesty is birthed from Amnesia.
Loss of memory, forgetfulness, a total blank.
Pardon, reprieve, forgiveness…

We thought we had to remember…
Each other and all those in pain, the pain itself, even the blinding
Moment of explosive anger which caused the pain.
We thought we had to remember this day
Long after this day has become part of an unreachable past.
But no, we have to forget and forgive each other
Our birth, the places and states of mind
Which have formed us, the way we see the world.
We must undo it and keep it in a complex contradiction.
Compassion.
Sympathy.
As we are now, as we think now
That is what we shall become.

Let us know our own power to forgive and let us see it
In the filaments of light and half-light,
In dancing daffodils and in the shafts of winter rain.