kintsugi -
broken, this aged vessel
fractured by fate in matter and mind
careworn and cracked like creeping veins of window frost ...
(but colder in my solitude, I surmise)
oh, but wholly blessed on the surface, really
no furrows or folds or wrinkly crows
hardly a dozen gray hairs, but for goatee' ...
(winter taking hold there, evidently
the once fiery and fervently experienced lips
put to the frigid air of the disinterested and forsaken)
too proud, really, that I look twenty years my lesser
for it reaps naught but envy ...
(when I yearn for naught but love)
yes, the porcelain facade still reflects the sun
but ONLY that, then back to whence it came
the warmth seeps not, and oh the splintered shell within
shards as sharp and crimped as British wit
whether by bent or happenstance or horrid folly ...
(they are as defined as they are hidden
as black as they are white
as cursed as they are blessed)
a hundred and more, they are a memory, each
a pain, a tragedy, a misstep, a ravaged heart given fully
returned with but a wish and a wave
but you see, those cracks and breaks and chips
all carefully mended ... with gold ...
(caring friends, exquisite joys, profound experience, loving family
hope, faith, renewed self-respect, and a million little things
that may pass others unnoticed
but to me, are the lifeblood of existence)
they fill the seams with the most wonderful precious metal
and that broken, shattered soul is healed
made whole by what is truly valuable and lasting
far more formidable and beautiful and priceless ...
(with the wisdom of breakage and healing
and all the myriad lessons learned in the process)
than it ever was ...
(than I ever was)
before.
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