Melanie Hack shares healing thoughts

Each of us has a hidden place
Somewhere deep within ourselves;
A place where we go to get away,
To think things through,
To be alone, to be ourselves.

This unique place, where we confront our deepest feelings,
Becomes a storehouse of all our hopes,
All our needs, all our dreams,
And even our unspoken fears.
It encompasses the essence of who we are and what we want to be.

But now and then, whether by chance or design,
Someone discovers a way into that place we thought was ours alone.
And we allow that person to see, to feel and to share
All the reason, all the uncertainty
And all the emotion we’ve stored up there.

That person adds new perspective to our hidden realm,
Then quietly settles down in his own corner of our special place,
Where a bit of himself will stay forever.
And we call that person a friend.
~ by Carol Elaine Faivre-Scott ~

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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January 1st, 2010 at 8:46 am
One Response to “A Poem For A Friend”
  1. 1

    Hi, Everyone,

    I’d just like to let you know I wrote the poem on this page. A number of fallacies have become associated with it ever since it’s been circulating through the internet for the past decade or so, without permission. First of all, many of the places you’ll see it have attributed it to Native American poetry. Now, while I have several Native American friends, I am not one; my ancestry is French and German. Another untrue story that is occasionally published with this is that it was written in memory of a friend who died of cancer. It was actually put together as a collection of some random thoughts I was having on friendship one evening; I subsequently submitted it to a Blue Mountain Arts poetry contest, which it was blessed to win. So there’s really no mystical aura associated with it. I’m glad so many people enjoy it, and I’m amazed to have found it included among wedding vows, funeral memorials for both humans and animals, on religious sites, on medical sites, in journal blogs and on poetry and literary review sites. But I really do want to clarify the actual simplicity with which it was written. I’ve created a Facebook page for it (and perhaps for other things in the future; you can link to it from the website address shown above). Thanks so much! Carol