The Hour Passed Poem by ashok jadhav

I held your words within me, sharp and cold,
Each one a weight that bent the frame of trust.
I might have spoken, offered pardon once,
Yet hesitation froze the gift of grace.
Now time has moved, the wound has settled deep,
And what could heal arrives belatedly.
You ask forgiveness in a trembling voice,
But I have walked these days without its balm.
The heart remembers every slight and pause,
And measures loss by what it cannot claim.
Too late, the act appears, though well intended,
Its power dulled by silence I have kept.
Yet still I see the offering, and wonder
If mercy, even late, can find a place
Within a soul long hardened by regret.
Perhaps forgiveness lives beyond the hour,
Waiting, patient, in the quiet of the self.