They don’t need to be forgiven

“I don’t need to be forgiven/ For something I haven’t done /Not for wanting my family/ To find their place in the sun”

-Billy Bragg

The thing is, many of us can relate-

they feel like neighbours, like friends,

not quite mere mortals, no

yet truly human, imperfect, like all of us,

ambitious, yet kind, unlike many of us.

Full of hunger: their feet on this Earth.

I see them and see the every day-

not a fiction, manufactured,

but

the future, dignified.

Simple gestures: pass the ball,

don’t look back; go for it

there is no i without u

no matter what

they are not on their own.

They don’t need to be forgiven

for what they did not do.

Instead we should thank them for this present-

the gift of beauty, pride and hope.

This is not all about us.

I think of Achilles- he, too, had to learn to lose.

We still sing of the Greek hero:

they, too, have won renown,

their legacy -so young!-

already does live on.

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