When the Brokenness Vanishes Before Your Very Eyes

This entry was posted on Nov 13, 2012 by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.
brokenness

Lotus in Muddy Water

When the Brokenness Vanishes Before Your Very Eyes

It isn’t what they told you, a chip broken from the hip bone

or splinter in your finger that can never be removed. Healing

comes before your very eyes, whether or not you’re watching

at times. You can’t find what’s broken in the falling-down house

of the body that is actually upright enough to live in most days.

The old or the new can vanish, leaving you amazed as you sit

on a chair on the sidewalk, letting the sun and wind sideways shower

you clear. Even the girl you are, fire to fire, in the morrow of your bones,

can sit up unfettered on her colt legs and take your hand, telling you,

“Look, it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Even the oldest woman you will be

can come to the other side of you, lean her forearm, still muscular

under all the age, on your right shoulder and nod, her eyes

your most beautiful eyes.

 

The loved or unloved ones long gone cannot grip weapons anymore,

and the ones still here will lose interest eventually. It’s how the seasons

land in each future glimpsed. The pregnant woman you were can put

her feet up, exhale, and laugh at the thousands of mosquito worries.

The father or mother, the brother who never said much, the best teacher

or worst friend sing the chorus they don’t even know they’re singing,

all of you too, about what life does to scars and breaks, what’s lost

or embedding in us. It is simply the song of breath, making mundane

the unimaginable, turning to light whatever weight or lost trails

you thought was always. No, what is always is how the bone regenerates

itself, the splinter slips out over time, the dog returns home, the bad father

begs forgiveness, the old dreams lifts its chest, spreads its arms

and gathers all of you up in whatever remnant of it glows still.

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About Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas, and the author of 14 books, including a forthcoming novel, The Divorce Girl; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community & Coming Home to the Body (Ice Cube Books); and four collections of poetry. Founder of Transformative Language Arts – a master's program in social and personal transformation through the written, spoken and sung word at Goddard College (Goddard College); where she teaches, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely. With singer Kelley Hunt, she co-writes songs, offers collaborative performances, and leads writing and singing Brave Voice retreats (www.BraveVoice.com); and she blogs regularly at her website (www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.wordpress.com)

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