I have learned
there are very few people
I can confide in.
Once I thought,
quite generously,
that I might have been mistaken
about one particular fellow.
He had shared
deep confidences with me
over painful things
that had happened
long ago.
I had listened,
allowed him to speak
without judgment.
These things were not his fault
in the context
of that place.
So many years later,
I thought to share
something very private
with him.
He promptly dusted me off
like some foreign object
lodged down his shirt
on a forest path –
centipede
or harmless bit of bark?
He projected ahead,
certain it was venomous,
toxic,
unable to summon
even the smallest compassion
for a fellow soul
in deep grief.
He said
he had no space
for the drama.
His own family
was enough,
presuming drama
was what I had brought him.
It was humbling
and threw me back
on myself,
as these things
so often have
in my life.
And now,
nearly ten years later,
he is clearly devastated
by a loss
almost impossible
to speak of.
And so
he seals himself
in silence.
It is interesting
how life keeps flashing mirrors,
lenses that refract
and reflect
elements of ourselves
back to the source
within.