The Nod

It was so long ago, that day, the memory
has almost leached away, and I no longer know
exactly what was said or done, only that you
took umbrage, and when next I passed your way
where once there would have been a smile, there was none.

Perhaps, I thought, you turned your back
attending to some task, or did not notice me
but each day from then on it was the same.
We are prisoners of geography:
to go about my business, I must pass
your house, and in unbroken sequence, trip by trip
there’d be a silent echo of that first rebuff.

No words are spoken and no blows exchanged
but you communicate each day, in subtle ways,
nothing has changed; whatever wound I made,
real or imagined, festers still …
                                                            Until today,
purely by chance, we caught each others’ eye
and in that moment, I could sense you
pondering on why it had to be like this.

After a second I received the faintest nod –
a token of forgiveness? I gave one in return
and resumed my progress with a bolder step,
heartened that even hate will fade away
in time, for those prepared to wait.

First published in The Fig Tree