Sunday, May 8, 2022

vii.

how to mend broken things


I once knew a man

whose profession it was to mend

precious objects, broken

intentionally or unintentionally.

he devised

all manner of concoctions:

epoxies, resins, glues,

to conceal from the eye

the rifts, the fissures, the cracks.


how we mend broken things

is not a recipe.

it is an art,

much like divining 

water coursing unseen beneath the surface, your wedding ring, a stone someone touched recently, your reading glasses.


how we mend broken things

must come with the profound recognition 

that not all things

can be

mended.

it depends on the material: your great-grandmother's crystal, a favorite porcelain tea pot, an ancient tree, a beloved home torn from its roots by a hurricane

flesh

a heart.

some things cannot ever be mended 

and while you may be tempted to reach for the glue, sometimes the only way

to mend certain things, is to leave something else broken

fashion the shards into an expression of the pain of loss

make something beautiful 

from the fragments

of the destroyed world.