Are there virtues that we forget? Personally or as a culture? Ones that simply fade like the faces on ancient Roman coins? For Aurelius, Clementia – mildness, gentleness, mercy – was one of the noble virtues.
A nine-year-old girl travels
all night by train with one suitcase and an orange.
She learns that mercy is something you can eat
again and again while the juice spills over
your chin, you can wipe it away with the back
of your hands and you can never get enough.
Credits
Quoted text from Philip Levine, The Mercy
Gentleness by Scott Morris/Flickr made available via a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs Generic 2.0 license.