The heart's reasons
    seen clearly,
    even the hardest
    will carry
    its whip-marks and sadness
    and must be forgiven.

    As the drought-starved
    eland forgives
    the drought-starved lion
    who finally takes her,
    enters willingly then
    the life she cannot refuse,
    and is lion, is fed,
    and does not remember the other.

    So few grains of happiness
    measured against all the dark
    and still the scales balance.

    The world asks of us
    only the strength we have and we give it.
    Then it asks more, and we give it.

    Jane Hirshfield