"So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here."

—Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy

Revenge, in this sense, can describe any closed loop—the resentment we return to, the story we keep rehearsing, the way we have decided things are and intend them to stay. A further shore suggests that what we can see from where we stand is not all there is.

The word "believe" is doing careful work here. Not know. Not prove. Believe—which is a posture, a willingness to hold open what could easily close. That reachable shore may not be visible yet. It may require something in us to soften before it comes into view. But Heaney seems to suggest it is there, on the other side of what we have been holding onto.