Broken Things (an original poem)

Tonight I feel like a cracked plate

Or a pitcher that won’t hold water.

I am trying to remember the beauty

Of broken things, of birds

With clipped wings, chipped shells

Whose wholeness I can only guess,

Small tiles whose pictures

Made from broken bits impress.

I am trying to remember the glass

I used to find, small and worn,

Rounded smooth to my hand,

And the tiny bits of rock and mica

In the sand ~ the way they sift

Through my fingers, gritty, sharp.

And in the fire’s ashes,

One gnarled string of a golden harp.

Tonight I feel like a piece of old chalk,

A pencil lead slipped from its point.

I am trying to remember the beauty

Of broken forms, of twigs

That snap in storms and lie there on

The ground, and brown leaves,

Paper thin and crumpled, that fall

With whispered sound. I remember cups

With missing handles and bells

That no longer ring and voices

So cracked and dry they can barely sing.

A brittle bit of bone, a sagging step,

A bedraggled hem, a shoe without a heel.

It seems to me I know just how

All these broken things must feel.

Tonight I can hardly recall what it means

To be whole ~ and yet, the form is there,

The full shape, the deep wellness of my soul.

I can not turn from the hands that know

Me best, know every hurt and broken place

And all my aching need for rest.

He loves me with a love that is unending,

Knows all my wretched, ragged rending.

He sees the way my broken self is tending.

And only he can move me toward his mending.

                                                ~EMP