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Compassion
by Kate Dean

Compassion:
Run headlong into it,
Trip over it,
Fly past it!

Such good words!
Yet: hold stiff to the spear,
Breath suspended,
Heart still running.

Not in the native dialect.
Only later,
After the translator
Has put the weapons away

In their vase by the door,
Does their tenderness
Seep
Into the inner ear.

Copyright 2007 by Kate Dean